DUSHANBE, August 17, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- Officers from the Sughd counternarcotics directorate yesterday detained a drug trafficker who was trying to push a large amount of hashish in the city of Chkalovsk.

10 packages containing more than nine kilograms of hashish were found in a Mercedes-Benz belonging to the 52-year-old K.A, according to press service of the Drug Control Agency (DCA) in Dushanbe.

K.A. and his passenger A.K. were detained on suspicion of having been involved in drug trafficking.  The preliminary investigation has established that A.K. is member of the organized drug-trafficking group and two other members of this group were arrested the same day, the press service said.

Criminal proceedings have been instituted against them under the provisions of Article 200, part 4 (illicit trafficking in narcotics, psychotropic substances in especially large scales) of Tajikistan’s Penal Code and an investigation is under way.