TEHRAN — Iran’s border police have seized 257 kilograms of narcotics from a depot at a border village in Sistan-Balouchestan, a province located in Iran’s southeast.

The commander of Sistan-Balouchestan’s border police has said his forces at the Jakigour border regiment gathered intelligence on a depot of illicit drugs at a border village and discovered that the smugglers had plans to transfer the narcotics into the country, according to Tasnim.

The border police forces raided the depot near the border village of Dazang, said Mohammad Mollashahi.

Mollashahi said a watchman was arrested in the operation and more than 1,257 kilograms of narcotics, including opium and hashish, were confiscated.

The smugglers had camouflaged the depot with plants, the general said.

Police and security forces have been quite successful in ensuring security in the province despite its long borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan, harsh weather and vast desert areas.

Iran, which has a 900-kilometer border with Afghanistan, has been used as the main conduit for smuggling Afghan drugs to narcotics kingpins in Europe.

Despite high economic and human costs, the Islamic Republic has been actively fighting drug-trafficking over the past decades.

The country has spent more than $700 million on sealing its borders and preventing the transit of narcotics destined for European, Arab and Central Asian countries.

The war on drug trade originating from Afghanistan has claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 Iranian police officers over the past four decades.

In April 2019, Iranian Police Chief Hossein Ashtari described Iran as a pioneering state in the campaign against drug trafficking, and said, "We have declared our information and needs to the international organizations but I should say that we have not pinned hope on their aid."

"We do not have hope that the international organizations can seriously confront" the cultivation and production of narcotics in Afghanistan, General Ashtari said.

MH/PA