DUSHANBE, January 16, 2012, Asia-Plus — Three senior drug police officers have been detained on suspicion of being involved in drug trafficking and sheltering organized drug-trafficking groups.
According to the Agency for State Financial Control and Corruption Combating, Major Zafar Mirzoyev, the chief of the department within the Interior Ministry directorate for combating drug trafficking (drug police), was detained recently. In September 2011, Mirzoyev reportedly gave 2 kilograms of heroin to P.A. for further provocations and extortion of money. “The narcotics were given to third persons who were detained in October,” said the source. “Mirzoyev’s subordinate posed as a drug buyer and they then extorted money from the detainees.”
We will recall that the anticorruption agency has helped break up transnational drug-trafficking ring and more than 42 kilograms of narcotics have been seized.
Members of this ring reportedly came into the spotlight last year during transporting a consignment of narcotics to Kazakhstan. An operation by Kazakh law enforcement authorities led to the arrest of one of members of the ring, while the ringleader and the remaining members of the ring managed to escape. International warrants have been issued for their arrest.
Six-month search operation for members of this drug-trafficking group has been fruitless and officers from the Tajik anticorruption agency have joined the operation at the request of the Kazakh law enforcement authorities and they have determined whereabouts of the ring members in several days.
The ringleader and one of the ring members were arrested in Dushanbe in early January last week and more than 42 kilograms of narcotics, including 9 kilograms of heroin and more than 33 kilograms of raw opium were found in an apartment they rented in Dushanbe.
The ringleader, R.H., reportedly received those 42 kilograms of narcotics from the chief of the drug control squad within the police station in one of districts in the southern Khatlon province for selling outside the country.
Lieutenant-Colonel Tohirkhon Sherov, the chief of the drug control squad within the Dushanbe police directorate, protected R.H. as well. Sherov was also arrested.
The source at the anticorruption agency added Tajikistan’s law enforcement agencies concluded a deal in November 2011 to cooperate in combating and preventing corruption crimes related to tax evasion, organized crime, drug trafficking and money laundering.
