The United Nations Office on Crime and Drugs is reporting that Afghan drug lords are recruiting foreign chemists to assist in their drug production.

From the Financial Times:

Drug lords in Afghanistan, where poppy growing has soared in spite of the billions that western powers have spent in trying to stamp it out, have started to recruit foreign chemists to help turn raw opium into highly refined heroin, the United Nations warned on Monday.

Most of the chemists come from Iran, Turkey and Pakistan, the UN says, and are going to some of Afghanistan’s most troubled areas to oversee the mixing of poppy resin with smuggled industrial chemicals to produce heroin of the highest quality.