TEHRAN – Iranian intelligence forces have disbanded two major drug rings in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan and confiscated more than 3 tons of illicit drugs.

According to Tasnim, the intelligence forces targeted the drug-smuggling groups in the city of Iranshahr, around 250 km south of Zahedan, the provincial capital.

A number of drug smugglers were arrested during the operation.

Iran, which has a 900-kilometer-long border with Afghanistan, has been used as the main conduit for smuggling Afghan drugs to narcotics kingpins in Europe.

In comments on July 9, Iran’s Ambassador to the United Nations Majid Takht Ravanchi said 3,815 Iranian law enforcement forces have lost their lives and over 12,000 others have been wounded in the war on drug trafficking over the past 40 years.

Over the past three decades, Iran has seized approximately 11,000 tons of different types of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, he added, saying that in 2018 alone, Iranian forces carried out 1,557 operations against drug traffickers, seizing approximately 807 tons of different types of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.

According to the “World Drug Report 2019” of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in 2017 Iran had seized “the largest quantity of opiates … accounting for 39 percent of the global total,” the envoy stated.

MH/PA