Real Property

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The poppies grown in Afghanistan supplying a market of 65,000 million dollars in heroin and opium, which reaches 15 million addicts and that Europe, Russia and Iran consume half the power supply, showed on Wednesday United Nations report.

Afghanistan produces 92 percent of the world's opium, a thick paste of poppy used to make heroin, and the equivalent of about 3,500 tons of opium are trafficked out of country each year, said the report of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC, for its acronym in English).

About two thirds of this material becomes heroin before leaving the central Asian country, while the rest is smuggled as opium, emphasized the study.

Less than 2 percent of the opium and heroin is captured by the authorities before to leave the country, and 40 per cent of heroin goes through Pakistan, 30 per cent by Iran and nearly 25 percent through Central Asia.

The border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan has become the largest free trade area (…) anything illegal drugs of course, but also weapons, bomb-making equipment, chemical precursors, drug money, even people and immigrants said UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa.

The Perfect Storm (…) drugs and terrorism may be heading towards Central Asia, said Costa. Much of the region could be involved in large-scale terrorism, endangering its considerable energy resources, he added.

Globally, only 20 percent of Afghan opiates are intercepted before reaching addicts, while the double requisition of cocaine from South America, the study reported.

In addition, the value of heroin increases with every border crossing, about $ 3 a gram in Kabul more than $ 100 on the streets of London, Milan and Moscow.

Europe consumes 19 percent of the world's opium, Russia and Iran come to 15 percent each, China 12 percent, 7 percent Indian, Pakistan, Africa and the Americas 6 percent each, said the report Addiction, Crime and Insurgency: the transnational threat of Afghan opium.

Afghan opium trade also finances the insurgents, Costa said.

Since 2005, the Taliban, who were ousted by a US-led invasion United in 2001 but made an insurgency with increasingly violent attacks, have earned about 160 million a year for taxes tive Board and the opium trade in Afghanistan, says the document.

The Taliban and Al Qaeda also share Pakistan's opium market, from 1,000 million dollars a year.

(Editing by Alan Elsner Spanish)