ORENBURG, October 2 (RIA Novosti) - Russian customs officials in the southern Urals city of Orenburg on Friday morning arrested two drug mules from Tajikistan with 225 capsules of heroin in their stomachs, a spokeswoman said.

"Orenburg customs officials identified two suspicious citizens of Tajikistan who arrived on a Dushanbe-Orenburg flight," Oksana Shabalina said. "A personal search was carried out as a result of which it was determined that there were alien objects in their stomachs."

She said one of the detainees was found to have 115 capsules of heroin in his stomach, while the other had 110. The capsules contained a total of 702 grams of heroin.

The men could face 12 years in prison if convicted of drug trafficking.

The former Soviet Central Asian states are major drug suppliers to Russia, where heroin addiction has risen rapidly in recent years.

According to estimates, about 90% of heroin consumed in Russia is trafficked from Afghanistan via Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. And the vast majority of heroin consumed in Europe passes through Russia on its way from Afghanistan, where illegal drug production has reportedly risen more than 40 times since 2001.