Russian law-enforcement agencies exposed more than 150,000 drug-related crimes in 2004.
International organized crime devotes close attention to Russia which boasts favorable geopolitical positions, a ramified transport network and extremely long state borders. Russia, a vast country, therefore faces serious border-control problems. Smugglers now take advantage of more intensive freight-and-passenger traffic via Russian borders. Analysts serving with this country's federal drug control agency estimate that cars and trucks carry more than 70 percent of all drugs being smuggled into Russia. Railway trains account for another 20 percent. Drug barons also use aircraft and ships for their vile purposes.
A considerable part of all drugs is smuggled through Russia's South federal district. Among other things, Afghan and Central Asian heroin arrives via the Volgograd and Astrakhan regions. Central Russia also gets more than 50 percent of all foreign opium through the Dagestani and Azerbaijani border. The South federal district's 4,000-km borders are virtually "transparent" in some places. Add to this heavy local freight-and-passenger traffic.
Southern Russia's drug-enforcement officers perceive Tajik, Uzbek, Gypsy, Azerbaijani and Chechen ethnic crime rings as a particularly serious problem. These transnational ethnic crime rings account for over 50 percent of the 276 known organized-crime groups. They ignore state borders, maintain ties with other post-Soviet republics and the rest of the world, boasting their own drug connections. These crime rings are engaged in wholesale drug trade. Talking to RIA Novosti, Vyacheslav OVECHKIN, a top drug-control agency official, noted that the afore-said gangsters were now establishing control over drug trade in all of the South federal district's territories. Thirty such crime rings were nabbed last year. It has been established that part of all drug-sale proceeds are used to finance unlawful paramilitary units.
The federal drug-control agency's experts estimate that up to ten kilograms of heroin are brought to Russia from Central Asia per day. Russian border guards and drug-enforcement officers found out that smugglers used to drop packs of Afghan heroin from the Dyushambe - Astrakhan train in a 37-km no-man's land between the Kazakh-Russian border. This connection has now been closed. Authorities in the South federal district have thwarted the activities of more than 20 crime rings, convicting 56 foreigners. The last phase of operation Drug Connection that was conducted by law-enforcement agencies in southern Russia's border regions made it possible to convict more than 700 people. Over 530 kg of drugs and 250 weapons were confiscated from them. Drug barons even had loaded aircraft guns, rocket launchers, dozens of hand-grenades, assault rifles, handguns and explosives.
Drug dealers also use confectionery poppy, while making their stuff. Such poppy which has high drug content is a legal product being imported by Moscow's companies from the Czech Republic, Turkey and Holland. These companies subsequently sell confectionery poppy at local retail stores. More than 90 percent of all drug addicts in the Krasnodar territory and North Ossetia use it to make highly toxic opium extract. Right now, the federal drug-control agency has teamed up with the State Customs Committee and the national Economic Development and Trade Ministry in order to thwart such deliveries. Southern Russia with its good climate abounds in illegal hemp-and-poppy plantations. These "crops" are grown on a "commercial" scale with the help of farming machinery, fertilizer and chemical pesticides. Tons of feedstock are stored inside metal barrels which increase their "shelf life". More than 60 kg of marijuana and 500,000 rubles' worth of drug-sale proceeds were confiscated from Rostov-region drug "planters" (mostly from cars and trucks).
Well-coordinated operations involving law-enforcement agencies, customs houses and border guards made it possible to effectively fight drug trafficking. Russia, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and other countries have now started establishing security perimeters along the Afghan border. Their creation is an important element of countering illegal drug trafficking.
