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Priority task in struggle against drug trafficking - develop, carry out joint anti-drug operations - Putin

He noted that Russia has a quite sufficient experience in this sphere

MOSCOW, June 5 (Itar-Tass) - One of priority tasks in the struggle against drug trafficking is to develop and carry out joint anti-drug operations, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at an international conference of the law enforcement agencies in the struggle against drug trafficking here on Wednesday.

He noted that Russia has a quite sufficient experience in this sphere. “For instance, within Russian-Kyrgyz cooperation 35 wholesale channels of heroin supplies were eliminated for the last two years alone,” the Russian president stated.

He is convinced that anti-drug efforts in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) bring a serious effect. Putin gave as an example of such cooperation the operation codenamed Channel-Transport carried out under the CSTO aegis last December, over 1,500 drug-related crimes were exposed, over 500 kilograms of narcotic substances and over 750 kilograms of precursors were confiscated.

The president called for establishing CSTO-NATO anti-drug cooperation. “This would be real consolidating actions, the response to common, real, not mythical threats,” he said.

Putin noted one more guideline that is the undermining of the financial base of drug crimes. According to the estimates of the experts, only the volume of opiate trade (calculated on the final sale value method) exceeds 60 billion dollars. Putin urged within cooperation with the Paris Pact, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) “to expose more actively, arrest and confiscate the funds and assets, which were acquired in illegal operations with the drugs.”

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