Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov.6/ Trend G.Mehdi/
Over 10 per cent of goods smuggled into Tehran, were destroyed, IRNA quoted an official as saying.
Mohammad Tabatabaeipour added that over 40 tons of goods, including food and health products worth 12 billion rials (about $97 million) were destroyed.
On October 24, Iranian Customs Administration Director Abbas Memarnejad said that some seven trillion rials (about $570 million) worth of goods have been smuggled into and out of Iran in the first half of the current Iranian calendar year which began on March 20.
Around 12,000 cases of smuggling have been registered at customs nationwide, he added.
The smuggling is not confined to fuels, he said, adding that it also includes home appliances and foreign currency.
The irregular importation of some unnecessary goods has damaged the national economy, Anti-Drug Headquarters Secretary General Fada-Hossein Maleki said. "Imports have increased by 12 per cent in weight, but declined by 16 per cent in value. This issue shows that unnecessary goods have been imported in a large scale," he noted.
On October 5, MP Alireza Monadi-Sepidan told Fars News Agency that imports should be regulated and illegal imports of up to $30 billion which have dented domestic production should be curbed.
According to the General Inspection Organisation's director Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the smuggled goods into the country amounted to around $20 billion in the Iranian year which ended in March 2011. The figure declined by $6 billion in the year to March 2012.