Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Iran, May 25, 2018 – Head of Iran’s Customs Department claims no goods are smuggled into the country through official routes.
“With the controlling measures placed into effect through a variety of systems, and the fact that we check all packaging and inspection documents at the source, there is no goods smuggled entering the country through official routes,” this official claimed, as cited by the semi-official ILNA news agency.
All the while, Iranian Industry and Trade Minister Mohammad Shariatmadari is surprised over “how smuggled goods travel 1,200 kilometers from Iran’s southern coastline all the way to Tehran, without anyone taking any preventive measures?!”
“Serious measures are needed against the smuggling phenomenon through official and non-official routes, and managing the country’s imports is quite impossible without preventing smuggled goods,” he added, according to ILNA.
It is quite telling how the remarks of these two officials are very contradicting.
One method used to smuggle goods into Iran is through forged documents.
Those involved in smuggling goods import a container of goods into customs, while resorting to various methods and excuses to import ten, or even dozens of containers. These latter containers are not checked anywhere through the process and, as Shariatmadari explained, easily travel 1,200 kilometers to reach Tehran.
Of the 1,128 containers of smuggled goods – acknowledged by Iran’s Intelligence Ministry – a large number had a variety of forged documents.
Amir Khojasteh, a member of the Iranian regime’s so-called parliament, acknowledges the fact that “the volume of smuggled goods through the country’s official routes is above 80 percent.”
“I don’t know how powerful this smuggling mafia is that various documents have also been lost in the parliament and no one is held accountable in this regard. I believe this mafia, with billions of dollars, has been able to reach everywhere,” he said to the Fars news agency, affiliated to the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).
Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, the Iranian regime’s attorney general, described the issue of “smuggled goods and currency” as a “major predicament” with a wide-ranging scope reaching across the country.
All the while, most of the judiciary cases involving smuggled goods in Iran see those accused being acquitted to return to their corrupt activities.
The widespread aspect of smuggled goods and currency in Iran confirms this reality that the “small smugglers,” who are constantly arrested and even killed by state police, are actually a very small piece of a very large puzzle.
State institutions are involved in major smuggling rings, importing their goods through legal and illegal ports, and using the country’s shipping lines to have thousands upon thousands of goods delivered into the country.
The IRGC is one of the largest such organs with access to a high number of illegal ports. This entity is known to import huge volumes of goods into Iran, resulting in a near halt of the country’s domestic production lines.
The U.S. Treasury Department has recent revealed how the IRGC Quds Force sent huge amounts of money through an Iraqi bank to the Lebanese Hezbollah.
All this goes to show how the Iranian regime itself is the main element behind the complete destruction and crumbing of Iran’s once prosperous economy.
