TEHRAN – Iranian deputy anti-narcotics police chief Naghi Mahmoudi in a meeting with the Chinese anti-narcotics officer in Iran discussed enhanced cooperation on fight against drug trafficking.

In a meeting held on Wednesday in Tehran, Mahmoudi emphasized the exchange of specialized information is one of the areas of joint cooperation that can greatly help in the fight against opium trafficking in the region and internationally.

He further expressed readiness to expand joint cooperation between the two countries in various fields, including the exchange of information on the main networks of drug trafficking and experiences related to police equipment, educational cooperation, detection of drug trafficking, training of detection dogs, and the pursuit of anti-narcotics cases between the two countries.

The Chinese anti-narcotics police force is fully prepared to increase the level of bilateral cooperation with Iran in the field of countering the transit and trafficking of narcotics at the international level.

Last year (March 2020 – March 2021), amid the pandemic, Iran has participated in more than 20 regional and international events online, in cooperation with the UNODC office in Tehran, Eskandar Momeni, the director of headquarters for the fight against narcotics, said on Tuesday.

The counter-narcotics agencies and police forces succeeded in detecting about 1,150 tons of various types of narcotics, which is a new and unprecedented record in the fight against drugs showing a growth of about 41 percent compared to 2019, he stated.

This success has been achieved with the martyrdom of 10 law enforcement and counter-narcotics forces in the global front against drug transit, he further noted.

After the Islamic Revolution (in 1979), 3,800 were martyred, 12,000 were wounded and disabled in the fight against drug trafficking, Momeni announced.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has praised Iran’s efforts to fight against narcotics trafficking on the occasion of International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.
The organization also officially announced that the world’s first place in the discovery of opium, heroin, and morphine belongs to Iran.

According to UNODC, Iran remains one of the major transit routes for drug trafficking from Afghanistan to European countries and has had a leading role at the global level in the drug-control campaigns.

UNODC World Drug Report 2020 estimates that in 2018, 91 percent of world opium, 48 percent of the world morphine, and 26 percent of the world heroin were seized by Iran.

FB/MG