DUSHANBE: Tajik Drug Control Agency (DCA) and Border Guards have seized 11 kg opium and captured a smuggler wounded in a shoot-out at Afghan border here the other night.
Authorities said that they prevented a drug-trafficking attempt on the Afghan border Officers of the Drug Control Agency (DCA), in cooperation with border guards, spotted on a routine patrol six armed drug-traffickers who were illegally crossing the border river in Khatlon province, according to the DCA press service here the other day.
The drug-traffickers opened fire when the officers and border guards tried to detain them, said the DCA, adding that one of the smugglers, an Afghan national, was wounded, while others managed to return to Afghan territory under the cover of darkness.
Two mobile phones were found on the spot, together with 12 packages of narcotic drugs, which weighed 11.9 kg and tested positive to raw opium, according to the agency.
Criminal proceedings have been instituted.
Tajikistan is often used as a transit hub for smuggling drugs from Afghanistan. It is estimated that about 20 percent of Afghanistan’s opiates travel through Tajikistan.
