Computer Videos

A Fateful Harvest - part 5 - A heroin lab bust

Back


The Taliban uses profits from opium as a source of revenue. Video of an anti-narcotic police bust of a heroin lab in Badakhshaan province. Two AM in Badahkshan province and the anti-narcotics police begin their operation. With the morning light, they arrive in a remote village. They've lost time and -- possibly - the element of surprise ... Amin: Where is your father? Man: Responds Colonel Amin Ali -- head of the provincial anti-drug force -- hurries with his team through the village ... There's still far to go and no certainty they'll find what they've come for... But the portable generator is a good sign. And further along the ravine, they find it... A makeshift heroin processing lab ... with 600 kilograms of opium ready to be processed into 75 kilograms of heroin. Wholesale value in neighboring Iran a quarter of a million dollars ... This time, the lab workers were tipped off and escaped ... but not before converting the raw opium into a solid morphine base, -- the step before refining it further into heroin. Amin: The water is [collected] then brought in big bowls and Then is boiled in these barrels Then, when the water boils, the opium is put in. The opium dissolves into a brown liquid and ultimately becomes the morphine base. It can later be processed into various grades of heroin for smoking or injecting. Given the remote location and difficulty of the terrain, Amin will have his men pour out the liquid here and destroy any remaining raw opium or bags of chemicals. This is the eleventh lab Colonel Amin and his men have raided in Badakhshan during the last year. But it's too soon to declare a victory in the province's drug war. Police reports claim many other primitive heroin labs in Badakhshan. They exist because the big money's in processing. Barnet Rubin: The UN office on drugs and crime, has estimated in recent years that the farmers are getting from 20-30% and that traffickers, corrupt officials, Taliban and other participants in it like people who make heroin out of opium are getting the remaining seventy or eighty percent ' Seventy to eighty percent of a yearly four billion dollar revenue stream is a staggering amount of money. The average per capita income in Afghanistan is under 400 dollars a year. Few legal jobs can match the money earned in the drug trade.

Category: News
Uploaded: May 27th, 2008 @ 8:46 pm
Author: VOAvideo

Length: 03:21
Rating: Whole StarWhole StarWhole StarWhole StarHalf Star
Views: 7,617

Tags: afghan afghanistan drug heroin ill opium poppy taliban trade

Related Video Links:


» View Video Comments For A Fateful Harvest - part 5 - A heroin lab bust
» View VOAvideo's Other Uploaded Videos

Video Thumbnails:


Thumbnail #1 Video Thumbnail #1:
Thumbnail #2 Video Thumbnail #2:
Thumbnail #3 Video Thumbnail #3:


Video Embedding Code:


Video Url:


Embed Code:

* Embed this video on your website, social bookmark, myspace, or blog.