MOSCOW, August 12 (RIA Novosti) - Narcotic officers in Siberia have made a massive seizure of 200 kg (440 lbs) of drugs worth $12 million, cutting off a major supply route for the trafficking of raw opium from Central Asia to Russia, a senior drug police official said on Wednesday.
Alexei Ivanov, head of a Federal Drugs Control Service department, said that the criminal gang, which was involved in trafficking Afghan-produced drugs to Russia via Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, had been under investigation for some time.
Ivanov said: "A car, carrying two Central Asian nationals, was stopped at a traffic control post on the Novosibirsk-Irkutsk highway on August 5. During a search of the vehicle two plastic barrels, which contained 130 packs of raw opium, were found."
He said that the drugs, which had a value of 400 million rubles ($12 million), were destined for sale in towns and villages in Siberia's Irkutsk Region.
Police arrested three alleged gang members, including the suspected mastermind.
The ex-Soviet Central Asian states remain major drug suppliers to Russia. According to estimates, about 90% of heroin consumed in Russia is trafficked from Afghanistan via Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Illegal drug production in the country has risen more than 40 times since 2001.
