British troops smuggled drugs from Afghanistan?

LONDON - Britain’s military police are investigating claims that soldiers from the country stationed in Afghanistan may have trafficked heroin from there.

The ministry of defence has said there have been “unsubstantiated” reports about troops using military aircraft to ship drugs out of Afghanistan, the BBC reported.

An inquiry has been launched focusing on British and Canadian personnel at airports in Camp Bastion and Kandahar.

Security has also been tightened, with sniffer dogs used as part of the crackdown.

“We are aware of these allegations. Although they are unsubstantiated, we take any such reports very seriously and we have already tightened our existing procedures both in Afghanistan and in Britain, including through increasing the use of trained sniffer dogs,” a ministry spokesman said.

“We regret any inconvenience caused to our service personnel. Any of our people found to be engaged in trafficking of illegal narcotics will feel the full weight of the law,” he said.

Afghanistan is the source of 90 percent of the world’s opium.