Iranian police seize over 3.7 tons of narcotics

The drug combat units of the Iranian Law Enforcement police have discovered and seized 3,743kg of different types of narcotics in the Southern Bushehr province since the beginning of the current Iranian year (March 21-December 13), a provincial police chief said. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday evening, Bushehr province's Police Chief Reza Mohammadi Yeganeh announced that police forces have conducted 1,800 drug-combat operations during the period. Yeganeh stated that the seizures included 1,524kg of opium, 2,111kg of hashish, 16.693kg of heroin, 25.849kg of Crystal (Methamphetamine). The police commander further announced that 1,400 drug-traffickers have been arrested and 52 other traffickers have been killed in the police operations during the aforementioned period. The anti-drug squads of the Iranian Law Enforcement Police have intensified their countrywide campaign against drug-trafficking through staging long-term systematic operations since last year. But, the Iranian police measures along the Eastern borders have forced drug-traffickers to resort to other routes, including the Sea of Oman and the Persian Gulf, for smuggling their drug cargos which originate in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Each year, the government spends hundreds of millions of dollars erecting barriers along the borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan and pumping resources into checkpoints. Officials said the battle against drug addiction and trafficking costs Iran US$1 billion a year. According to the UNODC, these days, 93 percent of the world's opium is produced in the neighboring Afghanistan, 60 per cent of which is destined for the EU and specially US markets, and the main transit route is Iran, where the country's dedicated police squad risk their lives to make the most discoveries of drug cargoes, disband drug-trafficking gangs and organizations and much more in a bid to rescue not only the Iranian youth but also all those living in Europe and the US. Iran has always complained about the EU and other international bodies' lack of serious cooperation with Iran in the campaign against drug trafficking from Afghanistan.