Southwest Asian Heroin

While a large portion of Southwest Asian (SWA) heroin is consumed in Western Europe, Pakistan, and Iran, traffickers operating from Middle Eastern locations smuggle SWA heroin to ethnic enclaves in the United States. Criminal groups composed of ethnic Lebanese, Pakistanis, Turks, and Afghans are all involved in supplying the drug to U.S.-based groups for retail distribution. SWA heroin traffickers and wholesale distributors generally have been consistently cautious, rarely conducting heroin business with persons not of Southwest Asian or Middle Eastern ethnicity. Therefore, the ethnic aspect of SWA heroin importation and distribution has made SWA heroin more prevalent in areas with large Southwest Asian populations.
West African traffickers, who primarily smuggled SEA heroin to the United States in the 1990s, now also deal in SWA heroin. In a particularly noteworthy seizure of approximately 24 kilograms of heroin in New York in May 2000, 90 percent of the seized heroin consisted of SWA heroin, and the remaining 10 percent was SEA. While unusual, a shipment containing the two types of heroin is not unexpected. For the last several years, West African traffickers, based in Bangkok who normally deal in SEA heroin, have been sending couriers to Pakistan to buy the cheaper Afghanistan-produced SWA heroin. Heroin in Pakistan is about half the price of SEA heroin in Bangkok where the West Africans pay between $13,000 and $16,000 for a kilogram.
The most recent sizeable seizure of SWA heroin occurred in New York City in September 200l when officers of the city police department confiscated approximately 50 kilograms of the substance. According to the Federal-wide Drug Seizure System, this was one of the largest seizures of powdered heroin in the past five years.