latter reference is `` to officials in the Afghan administration , federal government of Kabul or the provinces or the army or the police , '' Costa told CNN 's Christiane Amanpour . Watch Costa talk about the problems '' And the problem is spreading , he added . Drug money is funding insurgencies in Central Asia , which has huge energy reserves , Costa said . `` The Silk Route , turned into a heroin route , is carving out a path of death and violence through one of the world 's most strategic yet volatile regions , '' he said . Authorities are seizing too little heroin , intercepting only about 20 percent of opiate traffic around the world , according to the U.N. report , `` Addiction , Crime and Insurgency : the Transnational Threat of Afghan Opium . '' It comes on the heels of a U.N. warning last month that two years ' worth of opium is effectively `` missing , '' probably stockpiled by the Taliban and criminal gangs . More than 12,000 tons of opium , which can be consumed as a narcotic itself or turned into heroin , is unaccounted for ,
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Afghan opium kills 100,000 people every year worldwide -- more than any other drug -- and the opiate heroin kills five times as many people in NATO countries each year than the eight-year total of NATO troops killed in Afghan combat , the United Nations said Wednesday . An Afghan police officer digs up a field of opium poppies in April . About 15 million people around the world use heroin , opium or morphine , fueling a $ 65 billion market for the drug and also fueling terrorism and insurgencies : The Taliban raised $ 450 million to $ 600 million over the past four years by `` taxing '' opium farmers and traffickers , Antonio Maria Costa , head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime , said in a report . Not all the money is going into the pockets of rebels or drug dealers ; some Afghan officials are making money off the trade as well , he said . `` The Afghan drug economy generates several hundred million dollars per year into evil hands : some with black turbans , some with white collars , '' Costa said . The