Vasily Sorokin, acting head of the Drug Control Service, said that Afghan heroin is smuggled to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and then sent on to Moscow in smaller lots by car and train.
"Out of the total amount of over 700 kilograms of various drugs, 60-65%, or around 400 kilograms, is heroin," Sorokin told journalists.
According to Sorokin, some 20% were cannabis group drugs, mostly from Kazakhstan, and another 5% were synthetic drugs coming from the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the Netherlands and Russia's second city, St. Petersburg.
He predicted there would be an increase in synthetic drug deliveries from the Baltic republics, although he did not explain the basis of his estimates.
"We are especially disturbed by this group of [synthetic] narcotics because they are so-called 'club drugs' and kill mainly the young," he said.
In 2008, 540 people died of drug overdoses in Moscow, compared to 658 in 2007.
