ST. PETERSBURG, November 17 (RIA Novosti, Olga Vtorova) - Russia's law-enforcement agencies solved more than 146,000 drug-related crimes in the first nine months of 2005, a 13% increase on last year's figure, the head of Russia's Drugs Control Service said in St. Petersburg Thursday.
Addressing an international conference on international cooperation in the fight against drugs, Viktor Cherkessov said the number of registered drug-related crimes had increased by 40% since the start of the year and the number of offenses committed by organized crime groups had risen 45%.
Since January, Russian law-enforcers have seized more than 129 metric tons of narcotics, including 3.5 tons of heroin, Cherkessov reported.
