FINANCE: The New Silk Road

How does Afghan heroin reach western markets? Broadly speaking, there are two routes: one passing through Central Asia and Russia, the other through the Balkans. Well before it reaches Western Europe-in Afghanistan itself, or else in Pakistan, Turkey or former Soviet states-the opium is converted into morphine and then into heroin. The "precursor" chemicals required for this process, such as acetic anhydride, are often diverted illegally from factories in Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan. In the ramshackle new states which until recently formed the soft underbelly of the Soviet Union, drug lords can rely both on lax laws and on the corruptibility of police and customs officers, whose wages are a pittance compared with the sums at stake in the narcotics business. From these states, the lethal consignments-hidden in truckloads of raisins or walnuts, disguised as bags of flour, or else transported in rusting Soviet-era railway cars-take two different routes.

The northern route follows the old Silk Road into Russia, the Baltic States, Poland, Ukraine and the Czech Republic. From there, it runs through Scandinavia, Germany and points farther west. The UNODCCP'S director, Pino Arlacchi, says that Russia's "new rich" are among the biggest potential growth markets for heroin-pushers. Several other ex-Soviet republics, including Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania, with good road and rail routes, have been described in American government reports as increasingly important conduits for heroin from Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the German authorities have been struggling to staunch the flow of drugs through Poland. In 1999, for example, 80% of all heroin stopped on Germany's borders was seized at the Polish frontier. Police are particularly concerned by the arrival on the international market of a strain of high-grade narcotic known as Heroin No. 4, or white heroin, which is estimated to be at least 80% pure.

Recent seizures in Germany, Turkey, Finland and Poland have all proved to be white
heroin trans-shipped via Central Asia from Pakistan and Afghanistan. The southern, or "Balkan", route goes principally from Afghanistan to Turkmenistan, across the Caspian Sea, into the Caucasus, then into Turkey, from where the heroin is shipped to Albania and Italy. Other consignments cross Bulgaria and Macedonia in container lorries, finding their way to Serbia, Hungary and Austria. A second route goes through Albania, then across the Adriatic in speed-boats on nocturnal dashes to beaches on the eastern coast of Puglia, and then by motorway into Austria. A third route involves container vessels sailing from Constantza, on the Black Sea, to Turkey and on to Italy.

Economist.10.20.01 Abstact