KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- The U.N. drug czar told NATO that Afghan insurgents withheld thousands of tons of heroin to control street prices, WikiLeaks-released documents indicated.
The leaked documents indicated Antonio Maria Costa, head of the U.N. office on drugs and crime, told representatives of the military alliance that the Taliban and crime gangs held back 12,400 tons of opium from the market to keep opium and heroin at profitable levels, The Guardian reported Monday.
The U.S. State Department cable also appeared to show that the United Nations believed the Taliban and other insurgents in Afghanistan were well-organized, knew the heroin market and focused on maintaining a viable price for the drug.
The Guardian was one of a handful of newspapers who had access to the more than 250,000 confidential U.S. State Department cables WikiLeaks obtained.
Costa's claims, reported in a confidential document, were voiced during a September 2009 meeting when he briefed NATO and its partners on the U.N. annual assessment of the drug industry in Afghanistan.
Costa also said insurgents treated drugs like "savings accounts" to manipulate street prices in the West, one leaked U.S. cable said.
"Costa said that even though Afghanistan was among the most impoverished countries in the world poverty was not the main factor," the cable said. "Costa said abandoning opium cultivation dies not produce humanitarian crisis. He said market forces caused a shift in opium prices and could easily influence farmers to grow illicit crops if high market prices and revenue could be gained from them". UPI
