Commander of Sistan and Baluchestan Border Guards Colonel Mohammad Mollashahi said on Friday that some 832.600 kilograms of illicit drugs were seized in an operations in the province.
Of the seized consignment, 565.600 kilograms were opium and 267 kilograms were hashish, he said.
The Islamic Republic has been actively fighting drug-trafficking over the past three decades, despite its high economic and human costs. The war on drug trade originating from Afghanistan has claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 Iranian police officers over the past four decades. The country has spent more than hundreds of millions of dollars on sealing its borders and preventing the transit of narcotics destined for European, Arab and Central Asian countries.
According to reports, 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% of the global total.
MNA/4891232