Iran’s Police Seize 460kg of Opium in Shiraz
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran's police managed to seize a large amount of illicit drugs near the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, a police official said.
Colonel Nasser Keshavarz said Shiraz police department was informed on Friday of an illicit drug cargo being transferred to Fars province.
After judicial coordination, police officers were dispatched to Marvdasht-Shiraz road, where they chased a car and finally managed to stop it, he said.
The police inspected the car and seized 430 kilograms of opium, Colonel Keshavarz noted, adding that two people were arrested during the operation.
On the same day, in another operation in Shiraz, the police also managed to find 30 kilograms of opium subtly concealed in a cart and captured the cart carrier, he added.
In recent decades Iran has been hit by drug trafficking, mainly because of its 936- kilometer shared border with Afghanistan, where the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says accounts for 90% of the world’s opium.
The United Nations has estimated in the past that opium trafficking makes up 15 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product, a figure that is likely to rise as international military and development spending decline with the NATO withdrawal at the end of 2014.
According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Iran is netting eight times more opium and three times more heroin than all other countries in the world combined.
