MOSCOW, October 26. /TASS/. The annual proceeds of extremist groups from the production of drugs amounts to more than $350 billion, Director of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN) Viktor Ivanov said at the sixth meeting of the Central Asian anti-drug quintet (Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Iran) in Tehran on Monday.

"Financially, drugs are kind of foreign exchange reserves for the extremist quasi-public groups that are invested in the destruction of global and regional security. Let me remind you that this criminal fund annually launders through the banking system and injects in the criminal network infrastructure more than $350 billion, taking into account the production of cocaine and other drugs," FSKN press service quoted Ivanov as saying.

According to him, it is this investment that has caused the inflow into Eurasia’s regions of various groups, gangs, the largest of which identify and ideologise their community under the most exotic flags of various political hues.

"The examples of such organisations are ISIL (former name of the outlawed in Russia Islamic State (IS) terrorist organisation), the notorious drug-extremist movements Jundullah and the Balochistan Liberation Army. The activities of such organisations that have been established, built and run on drug revenues, are aimed at weakening and disintegration of sovereign states, and with a certain organisational influence from non-regional powers their destructive activity increases dramatically," said the Federal Drug Control Service chief.