Drug trafficking on rise in Uzbekistan as Afghanistan records highest opium harvest

Associated Press September 28 Drug trafficking is on the rise in Uzbekistan amid bumper crops of opium in neighboring Afghanistan, an Uzbek official said Tuesday at a narcotics burning ceremony in the capital. In recent years, Uzbekistan and other former Soviet Central Asian countries have turned into major transit routes for illegal drugs from Afghanistan on their way to Russia and Europe. The largest one-time seizure of heroin in Uzbekistan was 156 kilograms (344 pounds) last year when Afghanistan had a record harvest of opium, Shukhrat Azimov, an Uzbek security service officer, told reporters in Tashkent. Using a large crane, officials put 566 kilograms (1,248 pounds) of confiscated drugs _ more than half of which was heroin _ into smelting furnaces. Uzbek law enforcement agencies seized 607 kilograms (1,338 pounds) of illegal drugs in the first half of this year, compared to 447 kilograms (985 pounds) in the same period of 2003. Heroin production in Afghanistan continues on a large scale. Afghanistan's production of opium _ from which heroin is made _ increased last year to 3,600 metric tons (3,970 short tons), compared with 3,400 metric tons (3,750 short tons) in 2002, the U.N. drug agency has said. About a third of the drugs produced in Afghanistan _ the world's leading opium producer _ make their way through former Soviet republics. Three Central Asian countries _ Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan _ border Afghanistan and are the first to deal with the drugs on their way to markets in Russia and Europe.