PAKISTAN BUSTS HEROIN SMUGGLING RING

KARACHI, Pakistan, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Pakistani anti-drug authorities said
on Tuesday they had busted a smuggling ring that had mailed up to $1.5
billion worth of heroin out of the country over the last 13 years.

"The gang unearthed at the international mail office in Pakistan had
smuggled around 2,000 to 3,000 kg (4,400 to 6,600 lb) of heroin...,"
Mukhtar Ahmed, regional director of Pakistan's Anti-Narcotics Force, told
reporters in Karachi.

He valued the consignments at $1.0 billion to $1.5 billion.

Ahmed said seven mail office employees in Karachi had been arrested this
month.

He said the alleged smugglers took wrongly addressed parcels and letters
sent to Pakistan, put heroin inside them, changed the return addresses and
mailed them back out of the country.

Ahmed said the countries involved were in Europe and Africa.

He said his agency began monitoring the international mail office this
year, since two such parcels were discovered.

"The persons were pinpointed and all of them kept under surveillance.
Eventually in December they were apprehended red handed," he said.

Pakistan is the main smuggling route for the heroin produced in war-
ravaged Afghanistan where poppy cultivation has thrived during the last few
years.

Anti-drug authorities say they seized 1.4 tonnes of opium, 1.1 tonnes of
heroin, 27 tonnes of hash and 1.5 tonnes of other drugs in first six months
of 1998.

Because of the huge amounts of smuggling, Ahmed also said he wanted drug
cases to be tried in special military courts set up recently in Karachi.

"It is something we have been talking between ourselves but is not at the
government level... Certainly there is a consensus within the department
that these cases should go (to the military courts)", he said.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif set up the military courts last month to
speedily try serious crimes, such as murder and kidnapping, in an attempt
to end waves of ethnic, political and sectarian violence in Karachi which
have killed more than 800 this year.

Ahmed said his agency has made a string of drug seizures in the last two
years and arrested 169 people. It was also given the power to freeze the
assets of drug smugglers two years ago.

"We have also frozen assets of drug smugglers worth 1.9 billion rupees
($41.2 million) during the last two years," he said.

($146.11)