Police say 5kg cocaine seized at Tbilisi airport

The reported seizures of narcotics comes a week after the Interior Ministry announced about, what it called, "exposing of new route of the drug trafficking”, and seizing 5.2 kilos of cocaine on separate occasions from two Brazilian, one Ecuadorian and one South African citizens at the Tbilisi international airport.

In another separate case, reported by the Interior Ministry last month, a Lebanese citizen was arrested at the Sarpi border-crossing point while trying to smuggle 7.3 kilos of cocaine from Georgia into Turkey.

In January the Interior Ministry reported about seizure of 6.2 kilos of cocaine from three Bulgarian citizens, who were trying to smuggle the narcotics from Armenia into Georgia.

According to the recent International Narcotics Control Strategy Report by the U.S. Department of State Georgia is a transit and destination country for illicit drugs produced in other countries. It says that "the most significant drug trafficking route runs from Afghanistan and Iran through Azerbaijan or Armenia to Georgia, then to destinations in Western Europe, Turkey, and Russia.”

The report, which covers developments of last year, highlights seizure of 2.7 metric tons of liquid heroin by the Georgian law enforcement agencies near the port of Batumi in July 2014, which, it says, is "believed to be the largest overland heroin seizure in history.”