Boom in Afghan methamphetamine production propels drug across world

Royal navy teams board a smuggling craft carrying methamphetamine across the Arabian Sea in October 2020

Credit:  LET(ME) Dawkins/Royal Navy

As soon as the Royal Navy helicopter spotted the small boat, it looked suspicious.

The traditional wooden vessel was some 400 miles from land on a known smuggling route across the Arabian Sea. It was not flying a flag and did not appear to have fishing gear on board, but did have long-range aerials. 

For crews patrolling the notorious “smack track” and “hash highway” drug routes carrying heroin and hashish from Afghanistan via Iran or Pakistan, all these were telltale signs.

Yet what a boarding team from the frigate HMS Montrose found after hours of searching was  different.

The contraband found behind false bulkheads was neither heroin nor hashish, but more than 460kg (1,014lb) of methamphetamine hidden in food packaging. The haul of the highly addictive and potent stimulant had a wholesale value of around £18m and was followed days later by the seizure of another similar amount by a French frigate.

Only a couple of years after drug researchers first reported that Afghan drug traffickers were dabbling with making methamphetamine, they and security officials now suspect the country is starting to export huge quantities in a worrying new development for the region.

Seizures of the drug made infamous by the television drama Breaking Bad have “gone up by enormous amounts”, said Kevin Dawson, an international liaison officer working in the Gulf with the UK’s National Crime Agency.

Big shipments have been found heading to both Indonesia and east Africa, all on well worn routes for Afghan heroin. “It’s coming down the same routes as heroin, it’s using the same transportation methods, it’s being seized in roughly the same places,” he said.

The boom in Afghan production has taken off as producers have begun using local ephedra bushes to cook up the drug’s key ingredient. The wild mountain bushes have become a cheap and easy source of ephedrine, which was previously obtained from cold and flu remedies.

A recent report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction said Afghan producers appeared to be able to make methamphetamine far more cheaply than existing manufacturers in countries such as Myanmar.

Such a competitive edge backed by well established smuggling routes across Balochistan and then sailing from Pakistan’s Makran Coast could propel Afghanistan into the meth big league.

A 600kg seizure in Sri Lanka this year, and another 800kg found in Indonesia this year were both thought to have come from Afghanistan. The boat stopped by HMS Montrose was also thought to be headed to Indonesia. A Pakistani-crewed dhow was reported to have been seized in December 2019 off Mozambique with a large mixed load of heroin and methamphetamine.

David Mansfield, author of the report, said Iran was also reporting huge seizures of Afghan meth and analysis suggested Afghan production was far higher than its own domestic consumption warranted. Factories in a single district called Bakwa in western Afghanistan appeared capable of producing 800 tons of meth a year, he said. 

Yet the murky worldwide picture of the meth market made it unclear where it was going.

“You have got a new entrant to the market which we have no knowledge of its size. This is a drug which is relatively cheap and has a growing demand.”

Police as far afield as Australia have said that Afghan meth was developing a reputation for being cheap and high quality, he added.

The wave of Afghan meth is also having an effect closer to home. Police in Pakistan said the country was dealing with an epidemic of addiction. Some was thought to be locally manufactured, but the price of meth being smuggled over the border from Afghanistan was dropping and quantity was rising. The drug had become popular across society, from well-to-do students, to the unemployed.

“It’s a worse problem than heroin for us, because it induces very, very strong paranoid delusions and  homicidal behaviour,” said Muhammad Javid, a police officer in Khyber district. Pakistan has itself seen a 21-fold jump in methamphetamine seizures between 2016 and 2018, including a single 2.5 ton haul in 2018 which led to the arrest of an Afghan national.