Drug convicts constitute 23pc of all prisoners: MoI

KABUL where three million people were associated with growing narcotics.

Maj. Gen. Abdul Khalil Bakhtyar, deputy counternarcotics minister at the MoI, told a press conference in Kabul that counternarcotics police conducted 764 raids on drug smugglers and producers across the country during the past four months.

“As a result of these raids, 874 drug smugglers were arrested and they include 140 high profile smugglers, 142 medium level and 578 ordinary,” Bakhtyar added.

He said 23 public service officers, 15 police officers, eight Afghan National Army (ANA) officers, 14 women, eight foreigners, including five Pakistanis and three Iranians, were among those arrested over drug charges.

Bakhtyar said drug smugglers constituted 23 percent of all the prisoners in the country’s jails while more than three million people were currently directly and indirectly involved in growing narcotics.

Drugs seized during the past four months of the ongoing solar year included 830 kilograms of opium, 944 kilogrsm of heroin, nearly 47 tons of morphine, more than eight tons of hashish, 10 tons of alcoholic beverages, around 37 kilograms of shisha and more than 43 kilograms of chemicals used in heroin production, he added.

More than 70 kilograms of hemp seeds and raw seeds were part of the seizure. Bakhtyar said 136 vehicles, 82 weapons and 240 mobile phones and walkie-talkies were confiscated and $140,000 in accounts of drug smugglers were frozen under the law on money laundering.

Nineteen drug production and processing factories were destroyed during operations nationwide, he said.

Bakhtyar said the narcotics seized valued at $292 million inside Afghanistan and could fetch $900 million abroad, calling it a huge blow to the illicit trade.

He said two counternarcotics policemen were killed and a third wounded during the operations.

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