worked during vietnam why not in afghanistan? - transporting heroin on the cheap - we need another investigation - blown cover-for-cover

Source: Daily Mail

MoD probes claim that soldiers are smuggling heroin from Afghanistan

By Daily Mail Reporter
12th September 2010

Soldiers returning from Afghanistan are being subjected to rigorous security checks amid claims that some are involved in heroin trafficking.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed last night that military police were investigating a tip-off alleging that soldiers sent to fight the Taliban were buying drugs from Afghan dealers and shipping them back to Britain.

The claim is that heroin and other drugs are being smuggled in by a handful of the hundreds of soldiers returning each week to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.

An Afghan farmer collects raw opium from poppies. Some drug bosses in the war-ravaged country have implicated soldiers in the trade

As military detectives launched the probe, Army chiefs ordered checks to be stepped up at the airbase.

Now all returning personnel are being subjected to greater use of sniffer dogs, body and luggage searches, and covert monitoring.

While defence officials apologised for the inevitable inconvenience to troops returning from duties in Afghanistan, they warned of the consequences for any soldiers who might be involved in drug-smuggling.