Taliban hiding $3.2 billion worth of opium

UN reports that between 6000 to 8000 tons of opium, worth about $3.2 billion on the market, is currently missing. Officials believe the taliban are hiding the opium to artificially prop up herion prices, or they might be stockpilling the drug for lean times. Time

If international drug- and law-enforcement officials are right, the Taliban might be hiding up to $3.2 billion worth of opium inside Afghanistan, potentially causing huge complications for NATO's decision this month to attack Afghanistan's opium laboratories and smuggling networks. If it exists, the drug stockpile would also have a major bearing on Afghan officials' tentative peace talks with the Taliban, which are favored by U.S. Central Command chief General David Petraeus and both U.S. presidential candidates.

According to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, between 6,000 and 8,000 tons of opium have vanished during the past three years somewhere between the poppy fields of Afghanistan — which produce about 93% of the world's opium — and the world market. That's enough to supply all the world's heroin addicts for nearly two years. The whereabouts of the missing opium is a mystery so far, but international drug- and law-enforcement agencies say they believe the Taliban has begun to stockpile large quantities of the drug, which is worth about $464,000 per ton once it is exported from Afghanistan. When British forces recently occupied Musikalia in Helmand province, they uncovered a stockpile of 45 tons of opium. But that's a tiny fraction of what has disappeared. "Where is it? We have been asking," says Antonio Maria Costa, head of the U.N. drug office. He recently appealed to NATO forces and Western intelligence officers to launch an aggressive hunt for the opium.

I would guess the opium is hidden in Pakistan...

It might sound like good news that so much opium has disappeared from the world drug market, but Costa believes the missing opium is a potential time bomb, and many law-enforcement officials agree. That's because the Taliban is believed to be "stockpiling to control the prices," says a spokesman for Britain's Serious Organized Crime Agency, who confirmed that NATO forces have uncovered Taliban stockpiles of opium. Despite the bumper opium harvests, the street price of heroin remains a costly $67 per g in European cities, and the price Afghan farmers charge for their opium has remained about $70 per kg (about $33 per lb.). If the entire crop had been sold during the past two years, "the prices should have collapsed," says Costa. "But there has been no price collapse."

The Taliban grow no opium themselves but earn millions by levying a 10% tithe on farmers. Since heroin use is dropping steadily in the West, the value of opium is diminishing — that's why officials are especially alarmed by the Taliban's stockpiles. "Who would have reasons to hold on to a devalued stock? People who have mischief in mind," says Costa. He believes that the Taliban is saving the opium for lean times. He says the hundreds of Afghans working for the U.N. drug office in southern Afghanistan have recently found notices posted by the Taliban advising farmers not to grow opium this year. A similar edict by the Taliban during its last year in power, in 2001, resulted in tight supplies and soaring prices on the world market. "This is classic market manipulation," Costa says.

The Taliban could also be stockpiling drugs in preparation for a possible onslaught on Afghanistan's drug lords. NATO defense ministers agreed at a summit in Budapest this month to use their soldiers in Afghanistan for the first time to attack opium laboratories and smuggling convoys, rather than simply destroy opium crops.