Britain's military police are investigating allegations that British soldiers may have smuggled heroin out of Afghanistan using military aircraft, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) said Sunday.
An official spokeswoman said the investigation was focusing on service personnel posted to airports in Camp Bastion and Kandahar.
"Although they are unsubstantiated, we take any such reports very seriously and we have already tightened our existing procedures both in Afghanistan and in the U.K., including increasing the use of trained sniffer dogs," she said, ading: "Any of our people found to be engaged in trafficking of illegal narcotics will feel the full weight of the law."
Afghanistan accounts for almost 90% of the world's total production of opium. NATO has said that the revenue generated by illegal opium trade is financing and sustaining the Taliban insurgency in the war-torn country.
Late last year, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported that the production of opium was booming in Afghanistan despite the presence of thousands of foreign troops.
Currently, there are about 10,000 British servicemen deployed in Afghanistan as a part of a 150,000-strong international force from more than 42 countries. The foreign coalition troops are under the command of the NATO and the United States.
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May 15, 2026 15:25 ET Apart from the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair, the main news on the economics front this week included key price data from the U.S. and the first quarter economic growth figures from major economies. Both consumer prices and producer costs have started to reflect the effect of supply shocks due to the Middle East conflict. In Europe, GDP data was in focus, while inflation data from China dominated the news flow in Asia.