foir_3880

FOI-R--3880--SE
While the objective difficulty of seizing trafficked drugs is part of the
explanation for this mediocre interception rate, there is also the fact of
complacency or even complicity on the part of relevant institutions in the region.
As Sebastien Peyrouse (2012) notes, drugs trafficking has been classified into
three groups: ‘green’ – drugs trafficking as a complementary activity of religious
militant groups (mostly for fundraising); ‘black’ – small-scale trafficking by
individuals or small groups, often for delivery in domestic markets; and ‘red’ –
the most serious kind of trafficking, in large amounts, by organised transnational
groups who often enlist law enforcement officers and even political figures. It is
this latter kind of trafficking that accounts for the largest part of the overall
traffic, and it is rarely intercepted. Tajikistan has been viewed as especially
entrenched in this ‘red’ category of drugs traffic (Paoli et al., 2007; UNODC,
2012a: 12).
The range of drugs-related security problems in Central Asia is wide, even if not
all of the problems are at a critical point. They range from drugs-related violent
crimes, including organised crime, to negative effects on political stability, to an
extensive unaccountable ‘shadow economy’ around drugs, and, of course, a
growing prevalence of drug use, impacting on public health. Kazakhstan has
registered significant numbers of drugs-related crimes in recent years. Organised
drugs-trafficking groups have been frequently cited as key contributors to the
ethnically-based violence in June 2010 in the south of Kyrgyzstan. The violence
between government forces and the Badakhshani drug-based crime groups in the
city of Khorog in the summer of 2012 has been the most recent major episode in
Tajikistan.
Trafficking through the territory of Central Asia has also seen a growing rate of
drug use in these countries, leading to a rapid increase in the numbers of
HIV/AIDS-infected persons (due to injected drug use) and of drug-use-related
violence and deaths. The governments in the region, and most vocally that of
Kazakhstan, have recognised illicit drug use as a major security and health
concern. All five countries have seen steadily growing estimates of opiate
(opium, morphine and heroin) use, with Turkmenistan – where reliable
information is least available – cited as possibly the most affected.
DRUGS TRAFFICKING IN CONTEXT
Thus, to return to the question of the significance of drugs trafficking as a threat
in Central Asia: it is an important threat, even if the public do not entirely realise
this. After 2014, it is likely to grow in importance due to the increasing numbers
of drug users within the region, to the enormous market in Russia, where most of
the drugs traffic via Central Asia goes, and to the stable or possibly increasing
levels of production (cultivation and manufacturing of opiates) in Afghanistan.
The significance of drugs trafficking, however, lies not in its sheer volume or
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