He said that of this amount, there were over 8 t of opium, 1.1 t of heroin, 6 t of hashish and around 35 kg of synthetic drugs. In addition, over 1,300 firearms and over 25,000 rounds of ammunition were seized during the special operation.

Operation Channel-2007 was carried out in two stages: from 28 August to 3 September and from 27 November to 3 December, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are members of the CSTO. Apart from these countries, representatives of antinarcotics agencies from Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Iran, China, Latvia, Lithuania, the USA, Ukraine, Finland, Estonia and for the first time Turkmenistan took part in this operation as observers.

In all, over 96,000 officers from special services took part in this operation.

Zvezda TV showed Kharichkin saying: "For the first time, financial intelligence agencies were involved in the operation this year, so that the security belts that are being set up - in fact, this process has already been completed more or less, or more, to be precise - not only curtail the channels for drug trafficking but also work at the same time to cut off the financial channels of drug trafficking."