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British soldiers ‘smuggle heroin from Afghanistan’
Detectives investigate UK troops thought to be smuggling drugs on military planes
Military police are investigating allegations that some British troops returning from duty in Afghanistan are involved in drug trafficking, bringing heroin home with them on flights coming into RAF Brize Norton.
The MoD is taking the claims seriously, increasing the use of sniffer dogs and body and luggage searches on flights which bring 700 troops a week back from Helmand. The checks are so rigorous the MoD has apologised to innocent troops for the inconvenience.
The Hampshire-based Special Investigations branch of the MoD’s military police started their investigation after receiving a tip-off that a network of UK soldiers is buying drugs from dealers in Afghanistan. The investigation centres on British and Canadian troops based at Kandahar’s Camp Bastion.
An MoD spokesman said: “We take any such reports very seriously and we have already tightened our existing procedures, both in Afghanistan and in the UK, including through increasing the use of sniffer dogs.”
Robert Fox, The First Post's defence correspondent, said the revelation was, if anything, somewhat overdue: "If it's true, it comes as no surprise. The use of heroin - and the peddling of it - were rife in the Red Army when the Russians occupied Afghanistan.”
There is also a long tradition of profiteering among soldiers – as portrayed, fictionally, in Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 where mess officer Lt Minderbinder buys and sells his way around the globe.
Opium growing is worth £2bn a year in Afghanistan, which produces 90 per cent of the world supply. Of that, more than half is grown in Helmand province. One Afghan drug dealer spoke to the Sunday Times last year. Identified only as Aziz, he said: “Most of our other customers, apart from drug lords in foreign countries, are the military. The soldiers whose term of duty is about to finish, they give an order to our boss.
“As I have heard, they are carrying these drugs in the military airlines and they can’t be reached because they are military. They can take it to the USA or England.” ·
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Hey, what is the fuss all about...? i'm sure that the soldiers are taking it for their own use and not to sell in the market. Had that been the case, the market would have already opened up the information a long time ago. The Western (and some Eastern) Intelligence Agencies had been using the drug money for many years to finance their secret wars.The 'bad guys', Taliban had eradicated poppy growing completely. That was one good reason to destroy them. I don't think that a couple of ounces of hash would do British Society any harm..just lighten up some 'stiff--upper-lipped-tight-assed' parties for awhile...!!!
Mr McGowan, instead of publishing more of his cheap sneers at the military, this time about an allegation which is as yet unproven (and that means untested), would have spent his time more effectively if he had used it to inform his readership that Kandahar has no Camp Bastion (as stated in the report). Yes, there is a Camp Bastion in Afghanistan, but that is in another province and rather more than a hundred miles west of Kandahar. If the reporter cannot be trusted to ensure such elementary details are correct, Mr McGowan must delay judgment until he has personally checked the facts.
@Neil McGowan: Give the lads a break - if there's any substance to this story there will be the few odd blokes ruining it for the majority. The singular rotten apple is all it takes to ruin a barrel of good'uns.
Stick to archaeology and opera, Sefton. Introducing Heller'sMilo Minderbinder into this story does nothing for the flow or credibility.
Blimey, I get prouder and prouder of Great Britain with each day this war runs. Now we're not just murdering innocent civilians and blowing their houses up, and propping-up Uncle Sam in a pointless war... we're smugglin' dope an' all!! Gawd Bless Our Troops, What Feckin' Heroes They Are, Eh??