Iranian Police Seize Over 400kg of Opium in Single Operation
TEHRAN (Tasnim) — Iranian Law Enforcement Police forces have smashed a drug ring and seized 408 kilograms of opium in a single operation in the country’s central province of Isfahan, a police chief announced on Wednesday.
“During a successful and swift operation, a gang of drug dealers was identified and disbanded by the police of Isfahan and 408 kilograms of opium were seized,” Commander of Law Enforcement Police Force of Isfahan Province Abdolreza Aghakhani said.
He added that during the police operation, 4 drug-traffickers were arrested and handed over to judicial authorities.
In recent decades Iran has been hit by drug trafficking, mainly because of its 936- kilometer shared border with Afghanistan, which supplies over 90% of the world's opium, the raw ingredient of heroin.
The United Nations has estimated in the past that opium trafficking accounts for up 15 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product, but the figure is expected to rise as international military and development spending declines with the NATO withdrawal at the end of 2014.
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.
