VZCZCXRO4515
PP RUEHCI
DE RUEHKA #1785/01 3170939
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 130939Z NOV 07
FM AMEMBASSY DHAKA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 5531
INFO RUEHLM/AMEMBASSY COLOMBO PRIORITY 8139
RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD PRIORITY 1868
RUEHKT/AMEMBASSY KATHMANDU PRIORITY 9328
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI PRIORITY 0259
RUEHCI/AMCONSUL KOLKATA PRIORITY 0969

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 DHAKA 001785 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
DEPT PASS SCA/PB, SCA/RA, AND INL FOR JOHN LYLE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SNAR KCRM BG
SUBJECT: DRAFT BANGLADESH PART I FOR 2007-2008 INTERNATIONAL 
NARCOTICS CONTROL STRATEGY REPORT (INCSR) 
 
 
¶1. (U) The following is the draft text on Bangladesh of the first 
part (drugs and chemical control) for the 2007-2008 International 
Narcotics Control Strategy Report: 
 
¶2.  (U) I. Summary:  A Major narcotics bust in Dhaka in October 2007 
supported law enforcement officials' claims of a sharp increase in 
methamphetamine abuse in Bangladesh, particularly among upper-class 
urban youths.  The bust included the first seizure of drugs-making 
equipment suggesting substantial domestic production, some of which 
might be available to shipment to other countries. A November 2007 
seizure of 23.5 kilograms of heroin at Dhaka's international airport 
confirmed that at least some heroin continues to be transshipped 
through Bangladesh.  There is no evidence that Bangladesh is a 
significant cultivator or producer of narcotics. The Bangladesh 
government (GOB) officials charged with controlling and preventing 
illegal substance trafficking lack training, equipment, continuity 
of leadership, and other resources to detect and interdict the flow 
of drugs. An ongoing lack of cooperation among law enforcement 
agencies has made narcotics control difficult, although the Ministry 
of Home Affairs led an effort in late 2007 to improve coordination. 
While corruption at all levels of government traditionally has 
hampered the country's drug interdiction efforts, the Caretaker 
Government that came to power in January 2007 has made fighting 
graft a top priority.  Law-enforcement officials say the anti-graft 
push has made efforts to go after politically connected drug dealers 
easier.  Bangladesh is a party to the 1988 UN Drug Convention. 
 
¶3. (U) II. Status of Country:  The country's porous borders make the 
illegal flow of narcotics from neighboring countries easy and make 
Bangladesh an attractive transfer point for drugs transiting the 
region.  The number of drug users in Bangladesh has been estimated 
at between 100,000 and 1.7 million, with 20,000-25,000 injecting 
drug users and 45,000 heroin smokers. Other drugs used in Bangladesh 
are methamphetamines, marijuana, and a codeine-based cough syrup. 
After years of unwillingness to recognize narcotics issues, the 
country's law enforcement bodies took a stance against drugs in 
2006, largely due to two factors:  high-profile cases of heroin 
smuggling to the United Kingdom in 2005 and growing methamphetamine 
(locally, yaba) use among the young elite.  Yaba was initially 
popular among college students who used it to stay awake all night 
to study for exams, but has since become a popular stimulant at 
parties and is known as the "sex drug."  A large proportion of 
street urchins in Dhaka also sniff glue as an appetite suppressant 
as well as for its drug effects, according to the head of a leading 
drug rehabilitation organization. 
 
¶4. (U) III. Country Actions Against Drugs in 2006: Policy 
Initiatives. Continuing ineffective government coordination to 
counter narcotics abuse led to the creation of a new interagency 
monitoring group in November 2007.  The new group is led by top 
officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Department of 
Narcotics Control (DNC).  Additionally, all narcotics cases fall 
under the speedy trial act, under which a decision must be reached 
within three months. 
 
5 (U) Law Enforcement Efforts.  Law enforcement units engaged in 
operations to counter narcotics include the police, the DNC, the 
border defense forces known as the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), customs, 
the navy, the coast guard, local magistrates and the Rapid Action 
Battalion (RAB), an elite group that plays a leading role in 
fighting terrorism, corruption and narcotics abuse.  Customs, the 
navy, the coast guard and the DNC all suffer from poor funding, 
inadequate equipment, understaffing and lack of training.  For 
example, the DNC budget for 2007-2008 of nearly 150 million taka 
(slightly more than $2 million) is marginally less than the budget 
for the previous year.  Its work force of about 935 people also is 
nearly 350 positions short of the number of employees approved by 
the government.  There is no DNC presence at the international 
airports in Chittagong and Sylhet and only two at Dhaka airport, and 
DNC officers throughout the country are not authorized to carry 
weapons.  Land crossings are particularly porous, particularly the 
border with Burma over which much yaba and other drugs flow.  One 
law-enforcement official noted that some border checkpoints 
historically have not had female constables who could perform body 
searches on women crossing into Bangladesh. Although RAB has become 
perhaps the highest-profile anti-narcotics force in the country, it 
has neither a special counter-narcotics section nor specific 
counter-narcotics training.  Its drug-fighting resources appear 
stronger than other law-enforcement agencies, however, with a 
recently purchased chemical analyzer that can be used to identify 
drugs and an internally trained 44-dog canine corps. 
 
¶6. (U) Law Enforcement Efforts continued: Bangladesh's 
counter-narcotics operations received a huge boost in late October 
when the RAB made one of the largest drug busts in the country's 
history.  In a raid on a Dhaka office the RAB seized about 130,000 
yaba tablets, with a street value of more than $1 million, and large 
 
DHAKA 00001785  002 OF 003 
 
 
amounts of drugs-making equipment and raw materials.  RAB officers 
arrested a man suspected of being a leading drugs baron.  One 
immediate result of the raid was to send the street price of yaba 
from 200-300 taka a tablet to 700 taka ($10) or more. 
 
¶7. (U) The DNC keeps tabs primarily on seizures by its own officers. 
 Drugs seized by the department from January through September 2006 
are as follows: 18 kg of heroin (compared to 16.3 kilograms in all 
of 2006 and 20.2 kilograms in 2005); 1,373 kilograms of marijuana 
(compared to 1,345 kilograms in 2006 and 1,589 kilograms in 2005); 
more than 20,000 bottles of phensidyl, a codeine-based, highly 
addictive cough syrup produced in India; 215 ampoules of pethedine, 
an injectable opiate with medical application as an anesthetic; and 
5,652 tablets of yaba. The RAB reported seizing nearly 133,000 
tablets of yaba in 2007 through October, almost all of which came 
from the one Dhaka raid, compared to about 5,000 tablets in all of 
2006 and less than 1,000 tablets in 2005. Heroin seizures by RAB 
through October 2007 were 19.8 kilograms, compared to 38.5 kilograms 
in all of 2006 and 341 kilograms in 2005.  More than 80,000 bottles 
of phensidyl were seized through October, compared to nearly 190,000 
bottles in all of 2006 and about 120,000 bottles in 2005. 
 
¶8. (U) Corruption: The Caretaker Government that came to power in 
January 2007 made fighting the country's endemic corruption that 
permeated all levels of politics and society a top priority.  The 
chairman and members of the largely ineffective Anti-Corruption 
Commission were replaced with a new team led by a retired army chief 
that has charged many of Bangladesh's leading politicians, 
businessmen and civil servants with graft.  The Government also 
formed a National Coordination Committee to help with the graft 
investigations.  Several task forces were set up to help the 
committee with its work in Dhaka and outlying districts.  Between 
100 and 200 high-profile graft suspects were in jail as of October 
¶2007.  RAB officials say the new environment has made it much more 
conducive to target suspected drug barons.  The GOB does not, as a 
matter of government policy, encourage or facilitate illicit 
production or distribution of drugs or controlled substances or 
launder proceeds from their transactions.  No senior official has 
been identified as engaging in, encouraging, or facilitating the 
production or distribution of drugs or controlled substances. 
 
¶9. (U) Agreements and Treaties: Bangladesh is a party to the 1988 UN 
Drug Convention, the 1961 UN Single Convention, and the 1972 
Protocol amending the Single Convention. The GOB and USG signed a 
Letter of Agreement on Law Enforcement and Narcotics Control (LOA) 
in September 2002 under which the U.S. would provide equipment and 
technical assistance to the DNC and its central chemical laboratory. 
 The LOA also provided for training, via the U.S. Department of 
Justice, to law enforcement personnel involved in counter-narcotics 
activities.  There is no US-Bangladesh extradition treaty; however, 
Bangladesh law permits extradition without the existence of a 
treaty.  There has been limited cooperation with the return of 
fugitives from Bangladesh. 
 
¶10. (U) Cultivation/Production.  The DNC reported it eradicated 
about 60,000 poppy plants and about 20 kilograms of poppy seeds in a 
single operation in early 2007.  The DNC acknowledged that a limited 
amount of cannabis is cultivated in the hill tracts near Chittagong, 
in the southern silt islands, and in the northeastern region, 
claiming it is for local consumption.  The DNC also reported that as 
soon as knowledge of a cannabis crop reaches its officers, that crop 
is destroyed in concert with law enforcement agencies. 
 
¶11. (U) Drug Flow/Transit.  Customs officials seized 23.5 kilograms 
of low-quality heroin at Dhaka's international airport on November 
12, 2007. Media reported that two Bangladeshis bound for China and 
suspected of belonging to an international drug smuggling syndicate 
were arrested after the heroin was found in their luggage. A month 
earlier, the RAB reported the seizure of three kilograms of heroin 
from the Sylhet village home of a Bangladeshi UK resident who was in 
country on vacation. The heroin, according to RAB, came through 
India to Bangladesh from an unknown location. Two years earlier, two 
smuggling cases of about 75 kilograms of heroin to the UK and the 
resulting investigations by the GOB identified weaknesses in the 
country's narcotics-detection infrastructure.  Bangladesh is 
situated between the Golden Crescent to the west and the Golden 
Triangle to the east, placing the country at continued risk for 
transit crimes.  Opium-based pharmaceuticals and other medicinal 
drugs are being smuggled into Bangladesh from India.  White 
(injectable) heroin comes in from Burma. 
 
¶12. (U) Domestic Programs (Demand Reduction).  Law-enforcement 
officials believe that drug abuse, while previously a problem among 
the ultra-poor, is becoming a major problem among the wealthy and 
well-educated young.  Recent cases of yaba addiction in wealthy 
neighborhoods and on university campuses are of particular concern 
to the government.  The GOB runs several domestic programs, but is 
 
DHAKA 00001785  003 OF 003 
 
 
not funding them at levels to ensure their success.  The DNC 
sponsors rudimentary educational programs aimed at youth in schools 
and mosques, but there is little funding for these programs and no 
clear indication of their impact.  In addition, the DNC currently 
runs outpatient and detoxification centers in Dhaka, Chittagong, 
Khulna, and Rajshahi.  These centers only remove the drug from the 
addict's system; they do not address the underlying causes of 
individual addiction.  Hence, they are not successful in assisting 
addicts to overcome their addiction over the long term.  There are 
other, non-governmental centers with a variety of treatment 
therapies available.  Unfortunately, most of these are quite 
expensive by Bangladeshi standards and therefore beyond the reach of 
most drug addicts.  One drug addicts' rehabilitation organization, 
APON, operates five long-term residential rehabilitation centers, 
including the first center in Bangladesh for the rehabilitation of 
female addicts (opened in 2005).  APON says it is the only 
organization that includes street children in its drug 
rehabilitation program. 
 
¶13. (U) IV. U.S. Policy Initiatives and Programs.  Policy 
Initiatives: The USG continues to support Bangladesh's 
counter-narcotics efforts through various commodities and training 
assistance programs.  With State Department narcotics assistance 
funds, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration held a "Basic Drug 
Enforcement" training academy in Bangladesh in June 2007. 
Thirty-one counter-narcotics officers - including participants from 
the Bangladesh Rifles border security force, the police, customs and 
DNC - participated in training that covered topics from operational 
planning and undercover operations to proper evidence handling and 
report writing.  The instruction included drug identification using 
test kits supplied by the DEA, and hands-on training in proper 
handcuffing techniques.  The U.S. Agency for International 
Development provides about $3 million annually to Family Health 
International to implement the Bangladesh AIDS Program, which 
includes working with intravenous drug users.  DOJ efforts to 
improve the anti-money laundering and financial intelligence 
capabilities of the Bangladesh Bank support counter-narcotics 
activities in the country. 
 
¶14. (U) The Road Ahead.  The USG will continue to provide law 
enforcement and forensic training for GOB officials, much of which 
will be useful to Bangladesh's counter-narcotics efforts.  Mission 
has about $52,000 available from previous years in narcotics 
assistance funds that it plans to provide to APON to improve its 
facilities for rehabilitation of female drug addicts. In late 2007, 
Mission also began distributing to local narcotics enforcement 
agencies hundreds of kits to test for marijuana, methamphetamines 
and opiates. Post received no new International Narcotics Control 
and Law Enforcement funding for fiscal years 2007 and 2008.