YEREVAN, March 3. /ARKA/. Armenian law-enforcement authorities have detained six people with different citizenships on charges of trying to use the territory of Armenia as a transit route for transporting as many as 365 kg of heroine to Europe, the State Revenue Committee (SRC) said today.
It said the narcotics were discovered by the employees of its Directorate for Combating Smuggling when examining a batch of goods declared as yeast in a customs warehouses in Yerevan.
According to SRC, the market cost of the heroine hidden in 33 boxes of yeast is about $45 million.
“This is the largest amount of heroine discovered by the law enforcement agencies of Armenia since 2014. The heroin was to be transported from Iran through Armenia to Western Europe in yeast packaging,” the SRC said.
‘The criminal scheme was uncovered as a result of large-scale and complex analytical work and complex operational-search activities,’ according to SRC.
The agency commended sniffer dogs of its Kennel Center for discovering the narcotics. Police and National Security Service officers also took an active part in the operational-search activities, it said.
The investigation department of the SRC has initiated a criminal case on the basis of articles of the Armenian Criminal Code on the smuggling of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and (or) their precursors, as well as on the illegal circulation of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and their precursors for the purpose of selling or manufacturing or their illegal sale.
“The SRC calls on citizens to refrain from criminal drug trafficking schemes and warns that the department is fighting international drug trafficking around the clock, always being one step ahead of violators of the law,” the SRC said in a statement. -0-