Kyrgyzstan has become one of the first countries in Central Asia to successfully use drones to combat narcotics trafficking. This is thanks to Russian funding of $1.8 million (total budget) for a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) project to introduce new technologies in the fight against narcotics trafficking.
At the end of 2022, a Drone Operations Department was established under the Kyrgyz Drug Control Service. Since then, 19 narcotic crimes have been solved with the help of drones, and 205 kg of narcotics have been seized. In total, over the past three years, the department has uncovered 116 narcotic offences and seized 1823,5 kg of narcotics, of which 258 kg were of synthetic origin.