August 18, 2006	Friday	Rajab 22, 1427

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PESHAWAR, Aug 17: China has emerged as the most frequently used conduit for drug trafficking to Europe from Afghanistan after Tajikistan, official sources told Dawn.

Drug enforcers said that the new route was detected early this year when the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) arrested two Pakistanis carrying heroin capsules on their bodies at Peshawar International Airport while travelling to China via Dubai.

Last year, there was no case of drug smuggling from Pakistan to China. But this year, the ANF had so far registered eight cases of heroin trafficking to China, the sources said.

The ANF had arrested drug couriers mainly from the tribal areas and Afghanistan at Pakistan’s different airports and Sust border checkpoint in the Northern Areas, a senior official said.

Three Pakistanis were arrested in China’s Guangzhou province in five days, who were caught by the law-enforcement agencies with crystal liquid heroin used mostly by the European addicts through injection, according to well-placed sources.

These sources said that the Chinese law-enforcement agencies had arrested over two dozens Afghan and Pakistani heroin smugglers in three months. However, official sources said that the Chinese government had not yet provided a list of the arrested drug smugglers.

According to the sources, Ghanikhel and Shinwar districts of eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan were the main places where drug pushers had set up laboratories to make liquid injectable heroin from opium.

During a recent survey of the tribal belt along Pakistan-Afghan border, according to the sources, the ANF had also traced a laboratory in Khyber Agency near the Nangarhar province border where heroin was produced from poppy.

However, there was no trace of chemical to convert opium into liquid heroin form.

But investigators were certain that Khyber Agency was being used as the transit route to smuggle heroin to China from Afghanistan for onward shipment to Europe, said a senior official.

The official said that all smugglers were carrying liquid heroin capsules with them.

In the past, only foreigners from African countries were found smuggling encapsulated drug in their stomachs. Due to special check on them at airports by the ANF authorities, these African smugglers had now trained Pakistanis and Afghans for the job.

The official said that it was very difficult for the ANF to check the stomach of each and every passenger going to China.