TEHRAN One hundred and nine drug smugglers and 600 addicts were arrested by police in Damavand District in drug raids started since March, in northeastern Tehran, said that police chief Colonel Saeed Kasravi said on Sunday, adding that eight percent of those arrested were not from Tehran, and that some six kilograms of narcotics have been confiscated from the dealers over the same period.

In another development, earlier this month, police arrested 150 men and 11 women drug addicts and dealers in the Lavizan Park in north of Tehran.

Also in February, anti-drug squads arrested some 1,000 drug smugglers in a shoddy Tehran neighborhood in which about 75 percent of narcotics in the capital and other cities are distributed and is also known as a hideout for thieves and criminals.

The police has also succeeded in reining in some 50 drug lords and heads of drug distribution networks in Khak Sefid (white soil) District, said to be the largest drug distribution center in the country supplying 500 houses.

In another development, police forces in Kerman Province have confiscated some 27 kilograms of heroin over the week, an official of the Provincial Police Department said here on Monday.

According to Colonel Mohammad-Javad Asna-Ashari a bus driver transporting passengers from Bam to Kerman was arrested for the same activity.

Iran sits on the crossroads of the international drug trade and plays an important role in intercepting drug transfers. However, because of insufficient funding and international cooperation, international drug trafficking continues to be on the rise.

According to official reports, some 3,100 Iranian police officers have lost their lives in drug-related battles throughout the country over the past twenty years.