Customs officers at the Ayritom border customs post in Surkhandarya province foiled an attempt to smuggle a large consignment of drugs from Afghanistan late on the evening of October 1, the press service of the Customs Committee said.
During a check of a truck pulling an empty trailer, a service dog gave an alert, prompting customs officers to carry out a thorough search of the vehicle. It was driven by a 33-year-old resident of Termez district. Officers found 98 packages of hashish and opium concealed in the underside of the trailer.
To fool the X-ray equipment at the customs post, the packages had been wrapped in four layers of polyethylene, foil and adhesive tape, the statement said.
Seventy-nine packages contained hashish, weighing 42 kg 335 g including packaging, and 19 contained opium, weighing 10 kg 260 g, for a total of 52 kg 595 g. According to calculations, the haul could have been turned into 340,000 individual doses.
The Customs Committee said that since the start of the year its officers, working with other law enforcement agencies, have seized more than 1.9 metric tons of drugs.
