KARACHI — Pakistan said Wednesday it had seized its largest ever
heroin haul, impounding 375 kilograms (825 pounds) of the narcotic
worth an estimated $44 million on the international market.
About
108 kilograms hidden in matchboxes was seized late Monday from a
container at the Arabian sea port and another 267 kilograms of heroin
in a follow up raid in Quaid Abad neighbourhood, officials said.
"We
have arrested five people and during investigations they have confessed
that they were involved in drugs smuggling for a long time," an
Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) official told AFP.
The official said
the heroin was smuggled from neighbouring Afghanistan through
Pakistan's northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
"This is
the biggest heroin seizure in the history of Pakistan," the ANF said in
a statement, putting the value of the stash at $1.76 million on the
local market and $44 million on the international market.
Pakistan
has more than four million drug addicts in a population of 176 million,
according to figures compiled by the ANF, which is responsible for
investigating and prosecuting drug offences.
Opium poppy is grown
on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, a region infamous for Taliban and
Al-Qaeda-linked strongholds, and branded the most dangerous place in
the world for Americans by US President Barack Obama.
Pakistan
has a 2,500-kilometre (1,560-mile) porous border with Afghanistan,
which supplies 90 percent of the world's opium used to make heroin. AFP
