DUSHANBE, October 15, 2008, Asia-Plus  -- Two conductors from Tajik Railways have been detained on suspicion of having been involved in drug trafficking. 

According to the Ministry of Interior, officers from the Khatlon transportation police department yesterday detained two conductors on the train Kulob-Moscow, Shodi Hasanov and Alisher Safarov.  More than 3 kilograms of heroin were confiscated from them.  

Criminal proceedings have been instituted against the conductors and an investigation is under way.  

Tajik law enforcement authorities have seized 5,015 kilograms of narcotics over the first nine months of this year, which is 11 percent more than in the same period of 2007, when 4,528 kilograms of narcotics had been seized in the country.  Of those 5,015 kilograms of narcotics, 1,982 kilograms have been intercepted by officers from the interior ministry, 1,152 kilograms by the counter narcotics agency, 1,000 kilograms by border guards, 789 kilograms by the state committee for national security, and 90 kilograms by customs officers.