Iran’s Police Say Volume Of Trafficked Goods Is Too High For Individual Smugglers

Brigadier General Mehdi Hajian said in a press conference on Sunday that 3.3 million liters of vegetable oil, over 5.3 tons of wheat and flour, 3.3 thousand tons of rice, and 2.7 thousand tons of animal feed have been discovered and confiscated from smugglers and hoarders during the past two months.

He added that 1,284 people have been arrested in connection with the smuggling, noting that the total value of the confiscated goods is estimated to be about 9,000 billion rials (about $30 million).

Saying that such figures are alarming, he called for more efficient regulations and supervision over the supply chains, implying that such amounts of goods can only be smuggled through organized crime or with the help of the authorities.

Hajian also said the volume of goods trafficked to the country is also too high to be the work of individual smugglers via border crossings.

In February, the head of Iran’s Headquarters for Combating Smuggling of Goods and Foreign Exchange said the volume of smuggled goods is at least $12.5 billion and only one-third of the goods involved is discovered.

Ali Moayedi Khorramabadi noted that due to political conditions and economic sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic, trade is not conducted in accordance with international laws, therefore a lot of commodities are smuggled in or out of the country.