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Troops seize £150m Afghan heroin haul

By Terrapinzflyer · Mar 9, 2010 · 1.2K · 2
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  1. Terrapinzflyer
    Troops seize £150m Afghan heroin haul
    Fifteen-tonne cache believed to have been intended to fund Taliban

    Afghan and British security forces have seized £150m worth of heroin allegedly due to be used to fund weaponry for the Taliban.

    The 15-tonne haul was recovered from two trucks on consecutive days following intelligence gathered by the Afghan intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security (NDS).

    According to Afghan officials the location of the narcotics came from information supplied by prisoners arrested during the recent Operation Moshtarak and interceptions of insurgent telephone conversations.

    The amount taken is equal to 45 per cent of last year's total seizures, three tonnes short of the record and the claimed total in the street value of the drugs is a significant portion of the £400m the Taliban is believed to make from the opium crop every year.

    The operation also resulted in six arrests by the Afghan anti-narcotics force, which is being trained by Western agencies. In another investigation, a courier was caught leaving a hotel in possession of 12kg of pure heroin crystals this week, suggesting opium is still being processed in the area to a high purity level, said officials.

    There is increasing evidence that narcotics' cartels are processing poppies into opium ready for sale inside Afghanistan instead of sending the crop out to Pakistan and central Asia as had been the case until recently. Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai heard repeated complaints from residents of Marjah, the Taliban stronghold which had been seized by thousands of US, Nato and Afghan troops in Helmand.


    By Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent
    Monday, 8 March 2010

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/troops-seize-163150m-afghan-heroin-haul-1917793.html

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  1. RaverHippie
    Wow that's an impressive effort. They seem pretty effective about containing things over there for once.
    RaverHippie, Mar 9, 2010
  2. Sven99
    Once again confusion as to the difference between street value and value to the taliban. The taliban don't make 400 million by selling on the streets of Europe at £10 a bag.

    And while 15 tonnes sounds impressive, heroin production in Afghanistan was 8000 tonnes in 2007 (most recent figures i could find with a quick google search). So in short, a pretty minor set-back, and not likely to have much effect on availability, or the Taliban's ability to fund itself.
    Sven99, Mar 9, 2010
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