Some 100 trillion rials (over $2.38 billion) worth of confiscated contraband are being kept in warehouses, the fate of which has not been decided, the head of Majlis Industries and Mining Commission said.
Aziz Akbarian added that there are no plans yet to either destroy these products or to offer them in the market, this is while these goods are costly to store and they are drawing closer every day to their expiry date.
Reza Beheshtizadeh, an official with the Headquarters to Combat Smuggling of Goods and Foreign Exchange, said in March that more than 36.21 trillion rials ($810.38 million) worth of contraband were confiscated in Iran during the 10 months to Jan. 20, 2018, registering a 23.3% increase compared with the similar period of last year.
According to the commission's spokesman, Saeed Bastani, smuggling is now estimated to hover around $13 billion in Iran per year.
Smuggling has had a downtrend since Hassan Rouhani took office as Iran’s president in August 2013.
"The total value of smuggled goods during the three fiscal years March 2013-16 stood at $25 billion, $19.8 billion and $15 billion respectively.
In the fiscal 2016-17, the figure shrank to $12-13 billion, indicating a substantial decrease of 50% compared to 2013," Qasem Khorshidi, the spokesman of the headquarters, was quoted as saying by IRNA.
“In 2013, less than 1% of all the goods smuggled into Iran were confiscated. The rate stood at 32% last year, during which 146 trillion rials ($3.47 billion) worth of contraband were seized.”
Installing customs and border protection equipment, and using X-ray trucks and sniffer dogs have been among the measures taken to combat smuggling.
The Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration is ranked first in combating illicit drugs and second in fighting smuggling, according to a World Customs Organization report.
The report published by WCO's Regional Intelligence Liaison Office maps the countries' customs performance in battling the trafficking, transit and confiscation of different kinds of illicit drugs, psychedelics, the raw material of illegal drugs and new psychoactive substances, as well as combating the smuggling of fuel, endangered species, pharmaceuticals and fake products from January up to the end of September 2017.
According to the experts of Regional Intelligence Liaison Office, Iran's top ranks are because of the successful implementation of electronic customs systems.
Nonetheless, smuggling remains one of the main issues overshadowing Iran’s economy.
According to the Headquarters to Combat Smuggling of Goods and Foreign Exchange, per capita consumption of contraband in Iran stood at $197 last year.
Contraband comprises 83% of the mobile phone market, 47% of toy market, 27% of the apparel market and 21% of the household appliances market.
Chairman of Trade Promotion Organization of Iran Mojtaba Khosrotaj said apparel smuggling into Iran stood at more than $940 million in the last fiscal year (March 2017-18).
According to Abdolmajid Negaresh-Nejad, an official with the Headquarters to Combat Smuggling of Goods and Foreign Exchange, every $1 billion worth of contraband smuggled into the country destroys 100,000 jobs.
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, which has been assigned the task of tackling commodity smuggling in the Persian Gulf, will support the administration in the broader war on smuggling, IRGC's Spokesman General Ramezan Sharif said in March.
