Iranians doing drugs in a neighborhood in Tehran

Commander of the anti-narcotics squad of Iran’s Law Enforcement Police General Ali Moayyedi announced the arrest of 180 thousand drug trafficker 80 thousand drug users and the seize of 420 tonnes of different kinds of drugs in the past nine months.

On the other hand, Iran, itself, is notorious for being a point-to-point transit for drugs worldwide, in addition to being one of the most drug consuming countries. Evidence now points towards Iran with its Army of Guardians and the Quds Force, Led by Qasem Soleimani, for supervising all operations on drug trafficking to Iraq, Lebanon and there on to other Gulf countries.

Available information confirms that organized trafficking in Iraq coincides with the Iranian interference, and is interlinked to militia and organized crime gangs sponsored by the Army of the Guardians and the Quds Force.

Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, Interior Minister of Hassan Rouhani’s government, confirmed that the money collected from drug trafficking plays a primary role in the internal Iranian policy. Not only that, but former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had already hinted to the involvement of the Army of Guardians with controlling the black market and trafficking drugs when he mentioned them in one of his speeches referring to them as “our brother traffickers”.

While in Iraq, former Mayor of the Diyala Governorate, Omar al-Hmiri, told Asharq Al-Awsat that over 90 percent of drugs and Marijuana that enter Iraq are of Iranian origin saying, “There is surely a political cover provided for trafficking gangs”.

Over in Lebanon, operations carried out by governmental security bodies reveal the presence of great-scale factories working in multiple areas of Lebanon, and enjoying the benefit of protection provided by powerful figureheads in Lebanon, who manufacture Captagon drug pills(Fenethylline) and facilitate its trafficking through official ports and borders, under the sponsorship of “upper-hand powers”, referring to the domination of Hezbollah across the region.

Drug Enforcement units in Lebanon say that the trafficking through Syria since the beginning of the crisis there has amplified massively, especially with the security bodies being incapable of controlling the Lebanese borders because of Hezbollah forcing their power across the borders.