Bulgarian customs officials destroyed on Thursday 789 kilos (1,739 pounds) of illegal drugs they had seized in recent years, the country’s Customs Agency said in a statement.

The drugs, including 235 kilos of heroin and 235 kilos of amphetamines, were estimated to be worth some 34 million euros (48 million dollars) on the black market.

Law enforcement officials had to wait for various drug-trafficking trials to end before obtaining permission to destroy the drugs, the statement said.

In the past six years, Bulgaria has destroyed some 18 tonnes of drugs, most of which was seized at border checkpoints.

This year, the US State Department cited Bulgaria as ‘a major transit country as well as a producer of illicit narcotics’ in its annual narcotics control report.

‘Heroin from the Golden Crescent and Southwest Asia has traditionally been trafficked to Western Europe on the Balkan route from Turkey through Bulgaria to consumers in Western Europe,’ it said.

‘Precursor chemicals for the production of heroin pass from the Western Balkans through Bulgaria to Turkey and the Middle East,’ the report added.

AFP

Güncelleme Tarihi: 12 Temmuz 2007, 16:50