Baku, Azerbaijan, July 4
Trend:
Iran’s police forces seized the “biggest” morphine transit cargo in the south eastern Sistan and Baluchestan province, the state-run IRIB news agency reported July 4.
The 2.9-ton cargo was embedded in a gas bunkering truck, police commander of Sistan and Baluchestan province, Brigadier General Mohammad Ghanbari, said.
The value of the cargo was about 450 billion rials (each USD makes 42,800 rials), Ghanbari said, adding that three smugglers were arrested in the police operation.
The police commander said that over 41 tons of narcotics have been sized in the province during the first quarter of the current fiscal year (March 20-June 21).
Iran sits on a major drug route between Afghanistan and Europe, as well as the Persian Gulf states. The Islamic Republic shares about 900 kilometers of common border with Afghanistan, over which 74 percent of opium is smuggled.
The fight against drug trafficking annually costs Iran about $1 billion, according to the official estimates.
According to the statistics, there are about two million drug users in Iran.