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Illegal Drug Trade Yields 10-15bn Dollars Yearly in Russia

Posted on: Wednesday, 27 July 2005, 12:01 CDT

Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS

Moscow, 27 July: The illegal drugs trade in Russia yields annually 10-15bn dollars. These figures were cited today at a news conference by the head of the department of interdepartmental and information activity in the Russian drugs control agency, Aleksandr Mikhaylov. He believes that the law-enforcement bodies must tighten financial control over money received from the drugs trade since part of it is spent on financing terrorism.

Mikhaylov noted that migration control must also be tightened to prevent large batches of drugs from coming into Russia. This concerns, in particular, people coming from countries neighbouring on Tajikistan, through which the main heroin traffic goes from Afghanistan, the head of the department said. A serious blow against drug crime can be dealt by tightening control over precursors - substances necessary to produce drugs.

The drugs control agency's staff make a great contribution to the fight against drug crime, Mikhaylov stressed. "Last year has shown that our service is starting to seize major batches," he added. Since the beginning of this year alone the drugs control agency's staff have seized 44 tonnes of drugs, which is much higher than the corresponding figure last year.

Source: BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union

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