From: Al-Monitor | Iran Pulse
Habibollah Haghighi, chief of an Iranian task force to combat smuggling, announced that up to $25 billion worth of contraband was smuggled into the country between March 2013 and March 2014. Haghighi’s announcement came during a Jan. 22 meeting in Qom among seminary heads, in which he stated that the “trafficking of contraband goods hindered domestic production and had negative impacts on the economic, health care, medical and cultural sectors.” According to the official, the amount of contraband over the year was double the country’s development budgets.
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According to official statistics, commodities such as cigarettes, cellphones, alcoholic beverages, cosmetics, satellite receivers and medicine are the top illegal imports.
The Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration announced that of Iran’s annual $11 billion in cigarette imports, 25%, or $3.6 billion, is smuggled into the country. Drug trafficking is estimated to be worth $3 billion.
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Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the most serious accusation against the IRGC in 2011, claiming that the IRGC uses its military ports to smuggle cigarettes: “The value [of cigarette smuggling] makes any first-class international smuggler greedy, let alone our very own ‘smuggler brothers.'”
