Drug Crime and involvement of Nieghbours' countries

By Mishal Zia 

Dateline: 22nd June, 2022

In the spring of 2022, as Pakistan attempted to grapple with the triple pressures of political instability, economic crisis and spiralling narcotics flows, the country’s porous borders and weak enforcement infrastructure continued to allow organised drug syndicates to operate with alarming impunity.

Official figures released by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) show that customs officers at Gwadar in February 2022 seized 8.5 kg of high‑quality methamphetamine‑ICE, and shortly afterwards a much larger haul of 3,000 kg of hashish off the Balochistan coast around Pasni, jointly with the Pakistan Navy. These drug consignments were valued in the hundreds of millions of Pakistani rupees, yet were recovered only after smugglers had already penetrated deep into national territory, highlighting the scale of trafficking operations beyond the reach of routine controls. 

Border points such as Torkham, on the frontier with Afghanistan, were also scenes of significant seizures in 2022, with customs officials finding 35 kg of heroin and 17.4 kg of methamphetamine concealed in vehicles using welded‑in fuel‑tank compartments, followed by another 80 kg of heroin powder hidden in bags the same day. These brazen smuggling attempts illustrated how traffickers were exploiting both legitimate transport corridors and weak inspection regimes. 

The geographical reality underpinning these flows was stark. Pakistan sits adjacent to Afghanistan, the world’s largest producer of opium and heroin, and despite the Taliban’s much‑publicised April 2022 ban on poppy cultivation, traffickers simply rerouted and repurposed old networks to move supplies across the Durand Line into Pakistan, where they could be redistributed to domestic users and onward to markets in the Gulf, Europe and South Asia. 

But these figures on seizures mask a deeper problem: they tell only part of the story of a resilient and adaptive criminal economy that has embedded itself into the fabric of Pakistan’s frontier regions and urban centres alike.

Throughout 2022 there were persistent reports across local media, UN and research briefings that border fencing and isolated anti‑smuggling patrols were not matched by effective investigative follow‑through or prosecution. Analysts noted that track records of seizure do not equate to disruption of the wider trafficking networks, many of which have cultivated ties into ports, informal trade routes and even vulnerable coastal communities, turning ordinary cargo movement into narcotics pipelines. 

Criticism of Pakistan’s law enforcement response has also revolved around institutional capacity and integrity. The Anti‑Narcotics Force (ANF), a paramilitary bureau mandated with combating smuggling, faces chronic resource constraints and political interference that limit its ability to pursue high‑level organisers. Despite periodic high‑visibility operations announced throughout the year, many observers pointed out that most arrests were low‑level couriers or peddlers, not the network bosses who orchestrate cross‑border flows. Investigation and prosecution rates for major syndicate members remained low. 

Local enforcement agencies, including police and customs, were repeatedly accused by civil society groups of reactive tactics that focused on sensational confiscations rather than strategic dismantling of supply chains. Shortcomings included failure to pursue financial trails, inadequate use of intelligence analysis and poor inter‑agency coordination factors that allowed traffickers to exploit gaps in surveillance and judicial bottlenecks. 

The social toll of this failing strategy was plain to see in urban centres. Karachi, long plagued by a deepening drug crisis, continued in 2022 to report high levels of heroin and methamphetamine use and associated street crime. Grassroots activists lamented that enforcement priorities were skewed toward headline figures rather than public health or community resilience, leaving addiction and criminal networks to fester at street level. 

The crescendo of narcotics trafficking that marked 2022 in Pakistan was not just a matter of numbers seized at ports or borders; it was a reflection of systemic weaknesses in governance, overstretched security agencies, and an enduring economic dynamic that criminal networks have been quick to exploit. With criminal syndicates adjusting quickly to new restrictions and law enforcement tactics, the year underscored the urgent need for a more coherent, coordinated and transparent policy  one that goes beyond arrests and seizures to break the financial and logistical chains that sustain the illicit trade.