MOSCOW, October 30 (RIA Novosti) - Police in Russia's Urals city of Yekaterinburg have seized around 20 kg (44 lbs) of heroin from Tajik and Kyrgyz nationals, a police spokesman told RIA Novosti on Friday.
"Yekaterinburg police conducted two operations [on Thursday]. Five suspects were detained and about 20 kg of heroin was seized," the spokesman said.
He said three Tajik citizens were detained in the Zheleznodorozhny district of Yekaterinburg, and about 7 kg of heroin was seized. Some 12.5 kg was also seized from two unemployed people, one of them a Kyrgyz national, in the city's Verkh-Isetsky district.
An estimated 90% of heroin consumed in Russia is trafficked from Afghanistan via the ex-Soviet states of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The vast majority of heroin consumed in Europe passes through Russia on its way from Afghanistan, where illegal drug production has reportedly increased more than 40 times since U.S. forces toppled the radical Islamic Taliban movement in 2001.
