Eurasia Press & News
An Iranian police official here Saturday said that the law enforcement anti-drug squad has arrested an international band of drug traffickers in Tehran, saying that the gang, which included 85 African drug traffickers, has been totally disbanded. The Chief commander of the anti-drug squad of the Iranian Law Enforcement police, General Hamid Reza Hossein-Abadi told reporters that in addition to the aforesaid group, 22 more African nationals have been arrested during the last year on charges of smuggling illicit drugs from or into Iran.
The General said that his troops have received reports early this year that African nationals smuggled drugs through Iran.
“Some of the African detainees confessed that they had swallowed drugs as a way of smuggling. Following these confessions, the anti-drug police started intelligence work to identify the rest of the gang in Iran.
“After five months of intensive intelligence work, Iranian police could obtain the required information from their liaison offices in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkey to identify this international network of drug traffickers, which smuggled cocaine, heroin, and crack,” he added.
The General also said that the police had staged simultaneous operations in several Iranian provinces and Tehran on August 15 to arrest the band members, and pointed out that the group has been completely disbanded.
“In these operations, 90 members of the band were arrested, including 85 individuals from such different African countries as Tanzania, Nigeria and Ghana, two individuals from Pakistan and 3 citizens from Iran.
He also said that the smugglers swallowed cocaine in Dubai and smuggled it into Tehran and that they swallowed heroin, crack or crystal when leaving Iran.
