Russia, Uzbek police intercept 7 million dollars in Tajik heroin

Russian and Uzbek police intercepted heroin shipments from Tajikistan with total a street value around seven million dollars, according to Tuesday news reports.

Government agents inspecting rail traffic entering Uzbekistan from Tajikistan found a total 18 kilogrammes of heroin concealed in two separate trains, DPA reported.

One stash was concealed under the floor of a passenger carriage, and another inside a tanker car. Other finds included 23 kilogrammes of raw opium and 1.2 kilogrammes of hashish, according to a Tuesday Uzbekistan National Security Service statement.

Russian police from the central city Samara halted an automobile traveling along a major highway on Tuesday to find 14 kilos of heroin inside a passenger's suitcase.

The passenger was a Tajikistan national and the heroin was likely manufactured in Tajikistan from poppy extracts produced in neighbouring Afghanistan, Interfax reported.

A kilo of pure heroin reportedly costs some 5,000 dollars on Afghanistan's border with Tajikistan and as much as 220,000 dollars on the streets of a west European capital.

Afghanistan is the world's main source of heroin and heroin precursors.

Tajikistan, the poorest former Soviet republic, is a major transit country for heroin moving from Afghanistan to Europe.

A Tajikistan national was reported dead on Tuesday from heroin overdose after some 20 of the 98 capsules containing the narcotic ruptured after he had swallowed them, said Makhmadullo Asadulloev, a Tajikistan police spokesman.

The man was a drug courier planning to fly to a Russian city in coming days. He had more than 300 grams of heroin inside his stomach when he died, Asadulloev said.