Iranian Police Seize Huge Drug Cargo
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian law enforcement forces seized 400 kilograms of illicit drugs in a single operation in the country’s northeastern province of Khorassan Razavi, a provincial police chief said Wednesday.
Commander of Khorassan Razavi Law Enforcement Police Bahman Amiri Moqaddam said local police forces managed to seize 400 kilograms of narcotics including heroin and opium from drug-traffickers Tuesday.
He noted that the cargo was seized following the intelligence measures to monitor and chase a truck carrying the illicit cargo.
The commander further added that drug-traffickers had planned to transit the cargo into the provincial capital city of Mashhad.
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 said 74% of the world’s opium was produced in 2012.
Iran is on a major transit route for drugs being smuggled from Afghanistan to Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and the country's war on drug-traffickers has claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 Iranian police forces over the past 34 years.
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.
