Hang-gliding heroin smuggler is shot down

[emad]

August 23, 2005

Hang-gliding heroin smuggler is shot down
By Sam Knight, Times Online

A hang-gliding heroin smuggler has been shot down by soldiers over the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan, one of the world's busiest drug trafficking frontiers.

Tajik border guards shot the glider down with machine guns and recovered 18kg (39lb) of heroin from the vehicle, officials said.

There are conflicting reports about the nature of the glider, with some sources saying it was a hang-glider and others reporting that it was a para-glider with a small, improvised engine.

Tajik authorities said that the pilot escaped when the glider came down about 230km (142 miles) south east of Dushanbe, the capital of the former Soviet republic, whose landscape is almost entirely made up of mountains and deep, narrow gorges.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1747377,00.html

[BR_Parkway]

1. Seems like a part of the world that hang gliding (or any other activity

that makes you look like a target) is probably not the best choice to make - regardless if your smuggling drugs or not.

[underpants]

2. Gas a bit pricey there too huh?

So many ways to go with this one

[Shell Beau]

3. Wow! Did they really have to shoot him down?