Customs officers stopped a van at the southern Röszke border crossing with Serbia and following a search found the drugs in the modified double floor of the vehicle, NAV said. The drugs have a street value of HUF 151 million (US$542,000).
The Serbian driver – who said he was traveling to Germany – has been charged and handed over to police.
An earlier report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) showed that the total value of heroin and opium smuggled from Afghanistan to Western Europe through the Balkans amounts to some US$28 billion every year. 65 percent of it (US$18 billion) is generated in Western and Central Europe. The four largest European markets for heroin – France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy – account for nearly half of the gross profits, as the major heroin benefits are made by traffickers on the retail markets.
The report also said that the total value generated by drugs of Afghan origin reaching Europe through the Balkan route is one third larger than the entire GDP of Afghanistan.
