KABUL: UN officials recorded a sharp spike this year in the amount of heroin being seized from passengers trying to fly from Afghanistan to India, a worrying trend since the Taliban insurgency lines its pockets on the illegal drug trade.

A lack of coordination is hampering efforts to clamp down on the route, officials said, with India blaming Afghanistan for poor cooperation in helping to track smugglers.

In January alone, officials intercepted 44 kilograms of heroin from Afghan airports in eight separate cases, compared to 50 kilograms of heroin and hashish seized during the whole of last year, according to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime data.

Most of the cases have involved passengers trying to board flights bound for the Indian capital New Delhi after swallowing as much 2 kg of the illegal opiate in capsules, like condoms.

The spike is an “alarming trend”, said Mark Colhoun, deputy representative to the UNODC in Afghanistan.

“These mule are small fry,” he said. “You need to track down the networks.” The UNODC started working with Afghan police and customs in 2013 at Kabul’s airport, and later expanded to airports in Kandahar, Herat, and Mazar-i-Sharif. It is unclear whether the rise in heroin being seized represents an increase in trafficking or better tracking of smugglers. But opium cultivation in Afghanistan, which produces some 90 per cent of the world’s illegal opiates, is on the rise.

Afghan smugglers often travel to India under the guise of seeking medical care, said a senior official in India’s Narcotics Control Bureau speaking on condition of anonymity.

Published in Dawn March 18th , 2015

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