Six people were detained and about 120 kg of marijuana and raw material for drug production was taken from three hidden caches in Kazakhstan’s Zhambyl region, the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced on 16 September 2026.[1][2][3]
Near the village of Karasu in Merke district, officers caught a local resident red-handed as he pulled 20 kg of marijuana from an underground cache; the ministry said he had been convicted several times before for selling drugs.[1][2][3] In Shu district, three local residents were detained while digging up a cache near one of the region’s plants; the five sacks of dried marijuana inside weighed 72 kg, and two of the three had previously faced criminal liability for drug trafficking.[1][2][3] At Turksib station on the Chu–Tatti railway section, two more local residents were detained and 25 kg of cannabis-containing plants were seized from them.[1][2][3]
Pre-trial investigations were opened against all six for possession of drugs on an especially large scale, and the detainees were placed in a temporary holding facility.[1][2][3] The operations ran under Operation Karasora 2026, which the ministry said is closing transit channels for cannabis-group drugs from the country’s southern regions.[1][2][3]