Czech customs officers seized more than 5 kilograms of heroin during a check of a car on the D8 motorway near Lovosice late on Friday, customs directorate spokesman Jiri Nejedly said on Saturday.

 

The drug was found in an Opel Omega from the Ustecky region, north Bohemia, driven by a 39-year-old man. A sniffer dog barked at the suspicious car, therefore the officers decided to check it thoroughly. They found heroin in five plastic sacks wrapped in a towel and hidden in a sport bag.

 

The driver was arrested and might be accused of production and possession of drugs. He faces up to 10 years in prison, if found guilty.

 

"We usually uncover about 70 grams of the drug. We have never managed to find such a large amount so far," Nejedly said.

 

The seized drug could have cost about 5.5 million crowns on the black market.

 

Czech police anti-drug squad director Jiri Komorous said earlier this week that the Czech Republic is a transit country for drug smuggling, a country where drugs are produced and a target country for drug producers and dealers.

 

Czech National Drug Center (NPC) has seized 13 tones of drugs and 93,000 pills of ecstasy, all worth hundreds of millions of crowns, in 1340 actions, Komorous added.

 

(Xinhua News Agency November 6, 2006)