DUSHANBE, January 3 (RIA Novosti) – A Tajik border guard officer was detained in north Tajikistan with almost 23 kilos of hashish, Interior Ministry spokesman Makhmadullo Asadulloyev said on Thursday.

The man detained is a senior officer for military training at a border guard unit in Tajikistan’s Isfarin district bordering on Kyrgyzstan.

The Tajik police also seized about four kilos of drugs from a previously convicted resident of the Kanibadam district of the Sughd region in the country’s north-west.

Criminal probes into the illegal drug possession have been launched.

The former Soviet Central Asian states are major transit routes for drugs from Afghanistan destined for Russia and Europe. An estimated 90 percent of heroin consumed in Russia is trafficked from Afghanistan via Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.