Seized Hash Likely Canada Bound

[Medical Marijuana]

China And Vietnam Are Increasingly Used As Conduits, UN Drug Office Says

Trucked in from the nearest commercial harbour, the containers marked GLDU 7367200 and WHLU 5086522 arrived in a bonded warehouse in the Vietnamese frontier town of Mong Cai, waiting to be taken to Guangxi province in China.

That was when members of the Vietnamese C17 anti-drug squad struck this week, seizing nearly nine tonnes of cannabis resin, or hashish, the largest drug haul ever in Vietnam.

The shipment - reportedly with a street value of $90-million ( U.S. ) - originated from Pakistan and was headed for Canada, according to its bill of lading. There was no immediate confirmation yesterday whether the drug was truly bound for a Canadian destination.

But the scheme mirrored recent findings by international anti-trafficking agencies, which report that China is increasingly a transit point for the trade in illicit drugs. That new pattern is mostly used for derivates from opium production in Afghanistan, says the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

"Trafficking routes from Afghanistan via Pakistan and Central Asia to China [in order to compensate for the lower production levels in Myanmar] are another potential growth area that will need more careful monitoring," says the latest UN World Drug Report.

"The People's Republic of China is a major drug transit country to regional consumers in neighbouring parts of Asia as well as for international drug markets," says the 2008 report of the U.S. Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

That report added that "significant amounts of drugs" also transit through Vietnam, mostly opium and ****** headed for Australia, Japan, China, Taiwan and Malaysia.

The latest bust in Vietnam came after local police in the northern province of Quang Ninh got wind early in the year of an impending drug transshipment, the state-run Lao Dong newspaper reported.

The paper said the suspects - five citizens of China or Indonesia - applied at the end of April for permits to import two containers of blue jeans from Pakistan. The shipment was then supposed to be taken to China, then Canada.

The two containers landed on April 22 at the container terminal of Chua Ve, in the port of Haiphong in north Vietnam.

Lao Dong said police found it odd that the importers immediately left Vietnam for an unspecified destination. A week later, the five suspects flew back to Vietnam, rented trailer rigs and took the containers north toward the Chinese border.

They were arrested in the province of Quang Ninh before they crossed into the southern Chinese city of Dongxing.

The containers held 400 cardboard boxes. Under a double layer of blue jeans, the boxes were stuffed with packets of orange drinks. Inside each packet, police found a 2.2-kilogram bundle of dark, fragrant resin wrapped in metal foil.

A spokeswoman for the RCMP declined to comment on the drug bust.

"We work with this partner to intercept the flow of drugs," she said. "But on this particular case, we can't confirm the reports in the media that it is headed for Canada."

Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2008, The Globe and Mail Company
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