This is an interesting article from The Telegraph entitled The Profits are Vast But Only the Big Fish Can Swim, about how the drug trade in Afghanistan has developed from only 3 or 4 years ago.
"several shipments of ... opium each month [are brought] to the Iranian border ... to Iranian middlemen operating on behalf of European syndicates who refine it into heroin and speed. From there it goes onwards via Turkey to the back streets of London and other European cities...
'There are fewer smugglers than there used to be — and only the bigger fish can swim' said Nabi [a drug smuggler]...
The Helmand poppy trade, and Afghanistan's £1.5 billion-a-year drugs pyramid, is streamlining itself...
The trade has been forced underground thanks to the international counter-narcotics effort...
[However in recent developments] Afghan police recently stumbled on half a ton [500kg] of opium ... When Western drugs officials heard of the incident and approached [them] 15kg of the drugs were handed back."
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