Tehran, Iran, March.13
Trend:
The Iran border customs officers have discovered 16,000 liters of smuggled fuel, Trend reports via Tasnim News Agency.
A Milak Border Protection Officer said that following a strengthened inspections of trucks leaving Iran, an illegal cargo was discovered.
The cargo was contained 290 gallons of diesel fuel and about 1,200 bottles of gasoline.
As Iran’s national currency has dropped rapidly in value due to US sanctions, the smuggling of fuel has soared due to increasing price differentials inside and outside the country.
Iran’s rial has passed the record-breaking point of 140,000 rials against the U.S. dollar. This means the rial lost about 72% percent of its value, compared with September 2017, but subsidized fuel prices remained unchanged.
Therefore, the gasoline price in Iran is around 10 cents per liter currently, while the figure in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Iraq is six to 10 times more expensive, paving the way for a smuggling boom.