Dushanbe city police detained seven suspected members of a transnational group that brought drugs from neighbouring Afghanistan and then moved them onward abroad for sale.[1] Police said the group was led by 44-year-old Mukim Sheralievich Kurbonov from the Puli Sangin rural jamoat in Nurek, known as Mukimcha and Bachai kampir, who had twice been convicted of drug trafficking in Russia.[1] Police named the six other detainees as Salimdodov, Siroj Nazirov, Rukhangiz Nazirov, Zoir Latifov, Hikmatullo Boronov and Dovarsho Kalandarov, residents of Dushanbe, Khujand, Rudaki district and Shamsiddin Shohin district.[1]
A search of Kurbonov’s house in Nurek found more than 13.5 kilograms of hashish, the cannabis component recorded here, with 221 grams of opium and a batch of MDMA, or ecstasy, tablets.[1] Police said narcotics were taken from all the detainees, putting the group’s combined haul at 70 kilograms 283 grams of various drugs, a mixed total not counted as cannabis here.[1] Police said Kurbonov directed the group through messengers, drugs were sent abroad and sold, and proceeds reached his account through a Qiwi wallet.[1] A criminal case was opened against the suspects under Article 200 for trafficking in especially large quantities, with an investigation under way.[1] Police said the same group had moved 55 kilograms of heroin into a CIS country in October 2019, an earlier alleged shipment not counted in this case’s figures.[1]
On 26 June 2020 Sputnik reported that seven members of the transnational group had been sentenced by the Dushanbe city court to terms of 15 to 20 years, citing the capital police press secretary.[2] The report said Kurbonov, Rukhangiz Nazirov and Hikmatullo Boronov each received 20 years, while the four other members received 15 to 17 years.[2] Those convicted will serve their sentences in a strict-regime colony.[2] The state confiscated the convicts’ property including a two-storey house, a greenhouse, a shopping centre, a limonarii, a house in Nurek and seven cars.[2] TopTJ, citing the Dushanbe police press centre, said the Sino district court in Dushanbe passed the seven sentences the previous week and that all seven defendants had earlier been detained by the capital police for drug trafficking.[3]
