Police Seize 400kg of Hashish in Iranian Capital
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran’s anti-narcotics police forces have managed to capture about 400 kilograms of hashish in two separate operations in the northern province of Tehran, a provincial police commander announced on Sunday.
Colonel Mohammad Bakhshandeh told Tasnim that following three months of intelligence activities, the police forces traced two major hauls of illicit drugs destined for the capital, Tehran.
He added that one of the cargoes, which had been loaded on to a Scania truck in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, was identified and stopped by the police forces in a highway south of Tehran.
During the operation, a man and a woman were arrested and 190 kilograms of hashish were seized, the commander said.
He went on to say that in a simultaneous operation, the forces managed to seize more than 157kg of hashish that had been loaded on to a truck coming from the southeastern city of Zahedan.
Iran, which has a 900-kilometer common border with Afghanistan, has been used as the main conduit for smuggling Afghan drugs to narcotics kingpins in Europe.
Despite high economic and human costs, the Islamic Republic has been actively fighting drug-trafficking over the past three decades.
The country has spent more than $700 million on sealing its borders and preventing the transit of narcotics destined for European, Arab and Central Asian countries.
The war on drug trade originating from Afghanistan has claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 Iranian police officers over the past four decades.
