The WikiLeaks has published a new diplomatic cable in which US Ambassador to Azerbaijan Ann Derse informs the US Department of State that some Azerbaijani officials suspect Armenia's political elite of profiteering from drug trafficking.
In the cable dated to September 26 in 2008, the US diplomat, citing a source which she mentions as XXXXXXXXXXXX, wrote that citing Azerbaijani security sources, an officer of the United Nation Office on Drug and Crimes (UNODC) estimated that about 85 percent of the Iran-origin heroin enters Azerbaijan via land borders.
"He said that approximately 15 percent is entering via the Caspian Sea, mainly via trucks or containers on commercial ferries originating in Turkmenistan (following route Afghanistan-Iran-Turkmenistan).
The source also said that that "twenty percent of Azerbaijan's official border with Iran is currently occupied by Armenia (as a result of the unresolved Armenia-Azerbaijan war) and not controlled by Azerbaijani authorities, XXXXXXXXXXXX cautioned that the above estimates do not include any heroin shipments that may be following an Iran-Occupied Territories-Armenia-Black Sea route".
"XXXXXXXXXXXX asserted that some UNODC headquarters officers, as well as Azerbaijani authorities, believe that several such routes exist, and that the volume of narcotics pursuing this route probably exceeds that entering the rest of Azerbaijan.
"XXXXXXXXXXXX observed that Armenia is "starved for hard currency," and alleged that UNODC as well as Azerbaijani officials believe that senior Armenian political and government officials, including former President Tar-Petrossian, are personally profiting from this trade," read the cable.
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