Some 2.5 tons of drugs confiscated on Russo-Tajik border in 10 months

Russian servicemen guarding the Tajik-Afghan border have destroyed a drug dealer. According to the Russian border guards' press service in Tajikistan, on Sunday night, November 3rd, an armed drug trafficker trying to penetrate Tajikistan from Afghanistan was tracked down in the Kalai-Khumsky frontier section.

The criminal did not react to the border guards' demand to surrender. So the servicemen had to open fire for effect, and eventually killed the border violator. Later on, a shot-through car tyre, a metal oil can, a bundle with two packs of hashish weighing some 2 kg were found at the site of the incident.

The press service noted that Russian border guards had detained over 60 violators and prevented some 75 attempts to cross over the border from Afghanistan to Tajikistan in the past ten months. Border guard detachments came under small arms fire from Afghanistan 13 times. Russian frontier guards had to engage skirmishes with armed border violators 37 times, which resulted in the destruction of some 40 drug dealers, with a Russian border guard killed and nine others wounded.

Border guards have discovered over 45 caches with ammunition and narcotics. Some 70 units of small arms (a 1.4-fold increase on 2001) have been seized in the ten months of 2002. The amount of confiscated ammunition, mines, grenades and tank shells exceeded the 2001 record 2.1-fold and totalled over 5,800 units.

The total weight of drugs confiscated in 2002 so far stands at more than 2,450 kg, with heroin accounting for over 1,655 kg.