Iran’s Police Seize 250kg of Narcotics in Single Operation
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian Police Forces have confiscated 250kg of illicit drugs during an operation in the city of Jiroft in the country's southeastern province of Kerman, a provincial police chief said.
According to Jiroft Police Chief Colonel Mehryar Saeedi, police forces seized a quarter-ton of opium in an operation carried out on Friday night.
Colonel Saeedi said that during the operation his forces got likely smuggling routes under control.
At one of the police checkpoints on Jiroft-Raabar road, two cars were signaled to stop but the drivers tried to speed away, he stated.
The forces managed to stop the cars and discovered 250 kilograms of opium inside the vehicles.
Three drug traffickers were detained and handed over to the judiciary officials, Colonel Saeedi added.
Iran, which has a 900-kilometer common border with Afghanistan, has been used by smugglers as the main conduit to take narcotics to other countries.
Over the past three decades, the country has spent millions of dollars to seal its borders and prevent the transit of narcotics destined for European, Arab and Central Asian countries.
The war on the drug trade, a lucrative business originating in Afghanistan, has also claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 Iranian police officers.
According to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Iran accounted for the highest rate of opium seizures (80 percent) as well as heroin hauls (30 percent) in the world in 2013.
