TEHRAN: Iran’s Customs officials have seized 18 tonnes of precursors used for making heroin in northeastern province of Khorassan Razavi, provincial customs official announced.
Iranian Interior Ministry has said that the amount of discovery of illicit drugs by Iran’s drug combat squads has increased by 20 percent in the past six months. Each year, the Iranian government spends hundreds of millions of dollars erecting barriers along the borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan and pumping resources into checkpoints. Officials said that the battle against drug addiction and trafficking costs Iran $1 billion a year.
Iran lies on a transit corridor between opium producing Afghanistan and drug dealers in Europe. Islamic Republic of Iran has emerged as the leading country fighting drug trafficking after making 81 percent of the world’s total opium seizures. Every year, Iran burns more than 60 tonnes of seized narcotics as a symbol of its determination to fight drugs.
