Rouhani’s Interior Minister Rahmani Fazli made an unprecedented acknowledgement that the dirty money earned from drug-trafficking influences all arenas in politics, including the sham elections and the transfer of political power. Speaking to a gathering of Anti-Narcotics Police he said, “10000 billion tomans per year is the market for narcotics inside our country and an equal amount is the market for drug transit. Thus the yearly market for narcotics is 20000 billion tomans that is equal to two thirds of country’s development budget”. He added that “the dirty money from drug-trafficking infiltrates all sections… part of the dirty money of drugs is used in politics, elections and the transfer of political power in the country… around 450 tons of opium is consumed in Iran every year which amounts to 42% of the total opium consumption in the world”.
As the Iranian Resistance has numerously declared in the past, the drug-trafficking is controlled by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and Khamenei himself. Quoting a classified report of the U.S. Embassy in Baku, German daily Die Welt wrote on 14 May 2011, “Iranian regime purchases a great amount of Afghanistan raw opium and turns it into heroin… IRGC’s income from smuggling narcotics to Europe soars to billions of Euros.”
IRGC Brigadier General Gholamreza Baghbani of the terrorist Qods Force was placed on the terrorist list by the U.S. government for involvement in narcotics trafficking and for assisting terrorism. According to U.S. Treasury statement, “General Baghbani allowed Afghan narcotics traffickers to smuggle opiates through Iran in return for assistance. Afghan narcotics traffickers moved weapons to the Taliban on behalf of Baghbani.”(U.S. Treasury press release, 7 March 2012)
German custom officials announced last year that 45 kilograms of heroin was discovered woven in rugs shipped from Iran at the airport on their way to Poland, France, Belgium and Africa. It has been numerously exposed that the Intelligence Ministry and the IRGC are involved in the transit of narcotics. (Agence France Presse, 28 January 2014)
Through extensive distribution of narcotics, mullahs’ regime leaders have turned millions of people, especially the youth, into addicts and removed them from the effective cycle of social and political vitality and at the same time, upon the pretext of combating drugs, have spread various methods of suppression and execute political dissidents under the tag of smugglers. On the other hand, they bankroll the enormous costs of export of terrorism and fundamentalism by the revenues earned from narcotics both inside Iran and abroad.
Ludicrously, this regime receives millions of dollars for combating drug-trafficking from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime; a matter that has been criticized many times by human rights defender agencies.
In addition to the export of terrorism and fundamentalism, the mullahs’ regime leaders also spread death and destroy human beings in the region and the world through the extensive trafficking of drugs. They abuse trade relations with other countries not only to circumvent the sanctions and import illicit goods, but to smuggle drugs. They need to be banished from the family of nations and to have comprehensive sanctions imposed on them.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 23, 2015.