MOSCOW, March 11 - RAPSI. Head of the Drug Control Agency Viktor Ivanov said that the amount of heroin trafficked from Afghanistan had not diminished over the past 10 years since the agency was set up.

"The production of heroin has not decreased [in Afghanistan], but increased," Mr. Ivanov told RIA Novosti.

He said that Afghanistan annually produces between 4,000 and 8,000 metric tons of opium. It is impossible to sell it all in this small country and the drug is carried to other markets, including Russia.

"We routinely uncover more and more laboratories which produce drugs and send them to Russia. Most of them are located in northern Afghanistan, particularly in the Badakhshan province," Mr. Ivanov said.

Mr. Ivanov added that the estimated returns from drug production in Afghanistan exceed $100 billion, but the real figure is actually much larger.