A criminal court in Uzun district, Surkhandom region jailed five men for 15 years each after they were detained the previous summer on suspicion of drug trafficking, the State Security Service said.[1] The five were convicted under Criminal Code provisions on illegal border crossing, smuggling and the manufacture, storage and sale of drugs.[1] Their ages ranged from 20 to 26.[1]

In August 2025, Border Troops, State Security Service and internal-affairs officers detained two local residents in Uzun district as they illegally crossed the border and tried to bring 41.66 kg of hashish and 20.37 kg of opium in from Tajikistan.[1] Two other accounts gave the more precise seizure as 41 kg 668 g of hashish and 20 kg 374 g of opium.[2] Repost.uz put the two detainees’ birth years at 2005 and 2006.[2] Police later arrested two more residents of the district as suspected accomplices and a 26-year-old from Denau they regarded as the person who ordered the shipment.[1] UzDaily said the accomplices were born in 2000 and 2004 and that the alleged customer, from the town of Denau, was born in 2000.[3]

The operation was carried out by State Security Service Border Troops, the service’s Surkhandarya regional department and the regional internal-affairs department.[4] Zamon.uz reported that the two border crossers were detained with the physical evidence as they crossed and delivered the drugs in from Tajikistan.[5] Podrobno.uz described the two border crossers as young men aged 20 and 19 and put the intercepted load at more than 20 kg of opium and almost 42 kg of hashish.[6] Anhor.uz described both sets of arrests as arrests of the couriers and their suspected accomplices, the buyer being a Denau resident born in 2000.[7]