Iran’s Law Enforcement Forces (LEF) have seized more than 550 tons of illicit drugs in countrywide operations in the first ten months of the Iranian fiscal year (ends March 20), said Parviz Afshar, spokesman of the Anti-Narcotics Headquarters. “The police seized over 550 tons of narcotics over the March 21, 2015-Jan 22, 2016 period,” he said, IRNA reported.
The seizures show a 16% increase over the same period in the previous year.
According to LEF reports, drug production in neighboring Afghanistan, the biggest opium producer in the world, has seen a 40-fold increase since 2001.
In recent decades, Iran has become a major drug trafficking hub, mainly because of the 900-km long porous border it shares with Afghanistan, which produces more than 90% of the world’s opium.
