Russian police uproot 70 underground drug labs in past six months

Russia’s law enforcement agencies have curbed the activity of nearly 70 clandestine drug laboratories in the first six months of 2018, an official at the Interior Ministry’s drug control department, Anton Kochetov, said.

"In the first six months of 2018, Russia’s Interior Ministry has thwarted the activity of 70 clandestine drugs and psychotropic substances laboratories," Kochetov told an expert-level meeting of the Paris Pact initiative in the Chinese capital.

Over the past few months, the amount of opiates seized in Russia has been declining, the expert said, attributing this to a falling demand and an increase in the supply of synthetic drugs due to their low price and availability.

According to Kochetov, the Paris Pact is an efficient tool of cooperation in countering the drug threat. Russia’s cooperation with foreign partners and regular information exchange play an important role in the struggle against the "heroine expansion" and other drugs, he noted.

On Tuesday, a three-day meeting of leading experts in transborder cooperation as part of the Paris Pact initiative opened in Beijing for the first time on the basis of the Secretariat of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The event involves 60 delegates at the level of heads and senior officials from 18 countries and 10 international organizations.

The Paris Pact was signed in 2003. This is a document stipulating basic principles of international cooperation in combating drug trafficking from Afghanistan, including through the territory of Russia, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, the Balkan Peninsula states and Central Asia.