Kyrgyz police say they have broken up a criminal organization that was supplying heroin to Russia.
Kyrgyz Interior Ministry officials said on July 9 that police in Kyrgyzstan’s southern region of Batken had detained a drug trafficker after they found 15.7 kilograms of heroin in his car, packed inside 30 plastic bags.
The ministry officials say preliminary investigations show the detained man is a member of a group that regularly smuggles illegal drugs to Russia.
They did not announce any other arrests in connection with the case.
But they say investigations have been launched into the “illegal production, purchase, possession, transportation of drugs.”
Kyrgyzstan's Batken region borders Tajikistan, which is a transit route for smugglers who take heroin from Afghanistan to Russia and into Europe.
Afghanistan is thought to be the world's largest producer of illegal heroin.