A woman from the Philippines was detained in Tajikistan on suspicion of trying to smuggle heroin hidden in hundreds of buttons, the customs authority in the Central Asian country said today.

The woman, carrying up to 3 kg (6.6 lb) of heroin stuffed into 758 buttons and stitched onto 33 bath robes, was detained at Dushanbe airport as she prepared to board a flight to Turkey, customs officer Bekhruz Saidaliyev said.

"Imagine how many hours it took drug traffickers to do that," he said.

Tajikistan lies on the main drug smuggling route to Western Europe from Afghanistan, which accounts for 90 percent of the world's supply of opium and its refined form, heroin.