DRUG ROUTES MOVING NORTH

The official leading Britain's fight against illegal drugs said on Thursday
he was worried that traffickers were establishing new smuggling routes
through Russia and Central Asia as police clamped down farther south.

Keith Hellawell, Britain's anti-drugs coordinator, said police had clamped
down on routes from Pakistan via the Balkans to the West.

Traffickers were now forced to use what he called a northern route, from
Afghanistan and Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in Central Asia via Russia.

"We believe this is something we ought to be concerned about now," Hellawell
told reporters during a trip to Russia after meeting local drug fighting and
health officials and seeing British-funded programs at work.

"Some people now believe that this is becoming a very important route," he
said.

Russian officials also said this week that crime groups in Russia would
expand their drug trafficking into Western Europe.

Russian news agencies had quoted the head of the customs service's smuggling
prevention department, Viktor Marayev, as saying on Wednesday that
traffickers would take advantage of an oversupply of heroin from Central
Asia and the cheapness of the drug to push it west.

Marayev said the price of one gram of heroin in Russia was just $30 to $40
while in the West it was $180.