DUSHANBE. May 22 (Interfax) - The commander of a Tajik border guard post on the frontier between Tajikistan and Afghanistan was arrested after 20 kilograms of hashish was found in his office, a security service source said on Monday.
Capt. Nizomiddin Yakubov has been under surveillance since the start of the year as "it was found out at that time that he had contacts with Afghan drug traffickers," the source told Interfax.
It was decided to let a planned illicit transaction go through so he could be caught red-handed, according to the source. Yakubov received a load of hashish from the commander of an Afghan border guard post across the Panj River, about 200 kilometers south of the Tajik capital, Dushanbe.
"The captain was arrested at the moment he was putting blocks of hashish in the drawers of his desk," the source said. He said the Tajik National Security Committee had tipped off Afghan authorities that the Afghan border post commander might be complicit in drug trafficking.
Yakubov will face between 12 and 20 years in prison if convicted.
Analysts say that in January the Tajik government launched a war on drug barons and their protectors from among law enforcement officers and relatives of senior officials. That month Drug Control Agency chief Rustam Nazarov said nearly each drug trafficking ring enjoys protection from law enforcement or security officials.
In addressing his government on January 20, President Emomali Rahmon demanded prosecution for all suspected drug traffickers regardless of rank or possible kinship with top officials.
On January 24, the Corruption Prevention Agency announced it had carried out two anti-drug trafficking operations, which resulted in the arrest of 12 people, including two police officers and the brother of Mansur Umarov, first deputy head of the National Security Committee.
The Tajik-Afghan border is 1,344 kilometers long. The United Nations says up to 20% of Afghan opiates pass through Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
Last year, 4.2 tonnes of drugs was confiscated in Tajikistan.