DUSHANBE. Dec 5 (Interfax) - The Tajik State Committee for National Security has detained the suspected leader of a drug dealing group who delivered 147 kilograms of hashish to a cache near the Afghan border, the committee's public relations center said on Thursday.
The detention of the 44-year-old local resident, Mahmadjon Akbarov, took place in the village of Pistamazor in the Shurabad district of the Khatlon region, 200 kilometers southeast of Dushanbe.
"The detainee established a criminal relationship with the leader of a transnational criminal group, Afghan citizen Bismilloh Waladi Bozmahmad, who was detained by Tajik law enforcement authorities in the beginning of 2013 transporting 151 kilograms of drugs," the report said.
Detectives suspect that the cache near which Akbarov was apprehended contained the hashish recently smuggled across the border river Panj from Afghanistan. The Tajik police put Akbarov on the most wanted list in 1999 on murder suspicions.
A total of 5,693 kilograms of drugs were seized in Tajikistan, which has the longest border with Afghanistan amongst Central Asian republics, 1,344 kilometers, in January-October 2013, which is 5.2% more than the year before. Drugs are smuggled through Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan into Kazakhstan and Russia and farther, to Eastern and Western Europe.