Heroin worth Rs1.5b recovered at Torkham

Drug smuggling records spike after the fall of Kabul

TORKHAM:

After the fall of Kabul to Taliban in August last year, a record quantity of drugs is crossing into Pakistan from the war-torn country including ice and heroin and on Thursday the customs officials intercepted a shipment of 130 kilogrammes of finest quality of heroin at the Torkham crossing.

Talking to The Express Tribune officials said that the stuff is of highest quality and in great demand on the international market. “We have calculated the value of the shipment at Rs1.5 billion in the international market which is the largest shipment ever intercepted by Pakistan Customs in the country taking into account the quality and total market value,” said an official, adding that it was smuggled into Pakistan in an empty container and its driver Sharifullah has been arrested red-handed.

Customs Chief Collector Ahmad Raza Khan confirmed the development and said that they had received intelligence that a group would try to smuggle heroin into Pakistan following which they had alerted all their check posts.

“An international group of smugglers is involved in it and today (Thursday) the truck was intercepted at Torkhan Import Terminal and taken into custody,” he said, adding that the container was empty but in its secret cavities heroin had been concealed. He said that in the past few days they have recovered heroin and ice worth Rs3 billion in total which is a record in Pakistan.

Another official claimed that for the past 20 years Afghanistan has been the very center of heroin production in the region and the narcotics are supplied to the entire world by the drug dealers. “In the past we have not seen such huge quantities coming from the neighbouring country. May be due to the fall of Kabul the smugglers and drug dealers are now afraid of a crackdown by the new regime,” he added, saying that is why smugglers are trying to ship their ‘expensive and finest stuff’ to Iran and Pakistan which are considered comparatively safe.

“Once a ban is imposed on drugs in Afghanistan, it is expected to be enforced with an iron hand and dealers would be asked to voluntarily hand over their drug stores to the authorities so these people are trying their level best to ship the finest stuff to Pakistan and Iran and keep the inferior qualities locally to be handed over to authorities if necessary,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 7^th, 2022.