Members of the Iranian paramilitary Basij force, affiliated to the Revolutionary Guard, re-enact a riot situation during training in northeastern Tehran. In 2019, the US government designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a "foreign terrorist organisation" in an unprecedented move against a national armed force. Photo / AP, File
Members of the Iranian paramilitary Basij force, affiliated to the Revolutionary Guard, re-enact a riot situation during training in northeastern Tehran. In 2019, the US government designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a "foreign terrorist organisation" in an unprecedented move against a national armed force. Photo / AP, File
Opinion by Forough Amin
OPINION:
A massive spike in meth seizures has been reported by police as cartels target the “golden” New Zealand market.
Police have seized 428kg of methamphetamine so far in 2023. The seizures have increased 2300 per cent compared to 2022,
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes(UNODC), Afghanistan is the biggest producer of opiates globally. The annual flow of heroin and morphine into global markets is between 430 to 450 tonnes, out of which 380 tonnes is produced exclusively in Afghanistan (90 per cent of the world’s heroin and 95 per cent of European supply).
Afghanistan also produces between 6000 to 7000 tonnes of opium annually (more than 80 per cent of the world’s opium).
The produced opium and heroin in Afghanistan are trafficked to the global markets via the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran’s strategic location as a neighbour to Afghanistan, coupled with its access to free waterways and its position along major routes to Europe, establishes it as a crucial starting point for global heroin trade routes.
These routes facilitate the transportation of the drug to various destinations across the global trafficking corridors of Northern and Southern routes. UNODC estimates that about 140 tonnes of heroin – 87 per cent of the Afghani heroin trade – is transported through Iran annually, as smugglers consider it the main “trafficking hub”.
Opium production in Afghanistan. Photo / Getty Images, File
When we discuss the trafficking of Afghanistan’s opium and heroin through Iran, we are referring to an amount equaling more than 40 per cent of the opiates produced globally (the other half is transited through Pakistan). In other words, we are talking about the transition of almost half of all drugs in the global market from one place: Iran.
According to the Organised Crime and Corruption Project in 2021, Iran is a major transit point for the global meth trade. The report says that “while in recent years the drug is largely produced elsewhere, it is in Iran that it is processed into its final form and converted from liquid into crystalline form”.
The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction emphasised Iran was “a key transhipment point” for illicit drugs and warned about its “emergence” as a transit point for Afghanistan methamphetamine in its research on methamphetamine developments. This research refers to our neighbour, Australia, as one of the destinations for the methamphetamine exported from Iran.
As the research indicates, evidence showing the trafficking of methamphetamine from Iran to Australia proves “the capacity of Iranian drug trafficking networks to adapt and supply drugs to international markets”.
After UN and the US sanctions tightened the grip on the Islamic Republic in the early 2000s, drug trafficking became one of the major sources of the country’s shadow economy run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
This ideological army is using its control of the country’s customs system and its exclusive access to some terminals at Iranian ports and airports to smuggle Afghanistan’s drugs in and out of the county.
The IRGC uses the profit from its drug trafficking activities to fund Quds forces and other militias like Hizbullah carrying out military operations in the region and around the world.
The US Department of Treasury has designated a number of individuals within Iran’s IRGC Quds Force as drug traffickers, and Lebanese Hezbollah and various pro-Iranian paramilitary (Hashd) groups in Iraq have also been implicated in drug trafficking.
The question arises as to how such a substantial influx of drugs can enter a country without the government’s knowledge. It is astonishing that about 3000 tonnes of opium and 145 to 200 tonnes of heroin enter Iran’s borders each year.
These are not mere small packages of drugs concealed in individuals’ luggage or cars. We are referring to truckloads of drugs crossing Iran’s borders from both the east and the west, as well as being transported through the country’s ports to international waters.
The issue of drug trafficking is significant, and the IRGC with its exclusive access to and control on Iran’s roads/ports/airways is the main organisation facilitating and benefiting from the drug trafficking from Iran to the rest of the world.
This is the reason why we emphasise the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organisation in Western countries, including New Zealand.
The concerning surge in drug seizures in New Zealand, particularly methamphetamine, should serve as a wake-up call to the Government to take the threats posed by the IRGC more seriously.
As the case of Australia shows, merely relying on the considerable distance between Iran and New Zealand as a source of relief is not sufficient.
The gravity of the situation demands a proactive and robust response.
Dr Forough Amin is the founder of Iranian Women in NZ.
