Russia's narcotics chief, Victor Ivanov, announced Wednesday that a joint operation of Russian, Afghan and the US special forces captured several tonnes of narcotics and destroyed four drug labs in Afghanistan last week.
The teams discovered four drug labs, arrested 67 people and seized drugs worth more than $110 million, in the course of a two-week operation that ended on Monday,
Summarizing the operation, Ivanov said, "In total nearly three tonnes of hashish were seized. As a matter of fact, it's more than we seize annually in the Russian Federation, so it shows that the concentration of efforts on drug production sites is dozens, or maybe hundreds, of times more effective than elsewhere."
Ivanov, who has criticized US and NATO strategies, saying they should focus more on eradicating poppy crops, hopes to discuss the need for radical changes in fighting drugs at the next anti-drug conference in Peru's capital Lima in June. |