ULYANOVSK, January 10 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Federal Security Service officers have seized about 10 kilograms of heroin worth some $1.8 million from a transnational drug trafficking group in the Ulyanovsk Region in southern Russia, the FSB said this week.
The group that comprised Russian and Tajik nationals had been smuggling large batches of heroin to Russia for sale, the law enforcement agency said in a statement.
The stash seized was of Afghan origin and was equivalent to 90,000 single doses of the narcotic, it said.
“The black market value of the seized drugs is over 60 million rubles ($1.8 million),” the statement said.
Russia holds the first place worldwide for the number of heroin addicts per capita, and is a major conduit and destination for drugs originating in Afghanistan, the world’s leading producer of heroin, according to the UN’s World Drug Report 2013.
