Opium for the people: conflict in Iran will cause a heroin boom on the planet
Iran has been a powerful shield against drug caravans from Afghanistan for decades. Due to the fighting, the positions of the main drug police of the planet may be shaken. Experts paint a frightening picture: if the Iranian outpost falls, the world will be overwhelmed by a wave of cheap heroin — the expansion will undo the successes of decades of the fight against opioids. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
The border is being torn
In the coming months, a huge volume of heroin from Iran may flood into the world market, especially in the countries of the former USSR. Actually, the process has already begun. This is the opinion of Sergey Pelikh, an expert on international drug trafficking and former head of the investigative unit of the Russian Interior Ministry for combating organized crime. His assumptions are indirectly confirmed by the major detentions in recent weeks. For example, more than 10 kg of a high-concentration prohibited substance was intercepted by Azerbaijani border guards. The cargo was transferred across the border using a drone, and couriers (both Azerbaijani citizens) were detained, who were supposed to pick up the cargo and deliver it to the accomplices.
In early March, more than 3 kg of opium was found in a box: a drug courier tried to transfer it across the Iranian-Armenian border. A few days earlier, another drug shipment, 5.3 kg of heroin, was intercepted in the same country, traveling through Iran to Turkey in transit through Armenia.
In late February, four militants of the Iranian drug mafia exchanged fire with Azerbaijani border guards while security forces were trying to detain a caravan. During the clash on the border, the bandits abandoned the cargo (almost 34 kg of heroin) and disappeared into the forest belt.
Cutting edge of the fight against drug trafficking
As Sergey Pelikh notes, Iran has the largest land border with Afghanistan. This border is the main gateway through which the synthetic laboratories and opium fields of the Golden Crescent connect to the rest of the world.
According to the Iranian authorities, almost 1,000 tons of heroin were seized in the country in 2023. In recent years, 4,000 law enforcement officers have died in the fight against the drug mafia in the country. The seizure of shipments weighing more than a ton is a common occurrence for Iranian law enforcement officers. In November last year, the security forces seized 2 tons of the drug, which they tried to take out under the guise of washing powder.
Officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran estimate that almost 92% of the opium seized worldwide, 59% of morphine and 27% of heroin originate in their country or are seized with the participation of Iranian law enforcement officers.
According to a 2009 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), there was already no doubt that Iran was the main barrier to heroin trafficking. Of the nearly 76 tons of heroin seized worldwide that year, Iran accounted for 24.9 tons — 32% of all global seizures. This is an absolute record that neither Turkey (16 tons), China (5.8 tons), nor Afghanistan (2.1 tons) could match.
—Under the conditions of international sanctions, Iran performed traffic control functions with little or no external support,— Pelich emphasizes. — They had permanent formations that really fought and are fighting, or rather, a war, to stop the transportation and eliminate groups that tried to break through the border.
One is white, the other is grey
Afghan drug trafficking has long been divided into three main transnational streams: the northern (through Central Asia to Russia), the Balkan (through Turkey to Europe) and the southern (through Iran and its ports). But it is through Iran that the most valuable cargo goes.
"Low—quality drugs intended for mass domestic consumption are being sent to the northern route, towards Russia," explains Sergey Pelikh. — But towards Iran there is crystal heroin of the highest purity, about 70-90%.
This product is designed for the demanding markets of Europe, North America and rich Asian countries. Even the method of using such a drug is different than in the 1990s in Russia.
"Interestingly, it is often brought to the right condition not in Afghanistan, but right on the border, in areas where Kurdish processing groups operate," says Pelih. — After they are "refined", the substance acquires a light cream color and a purity of 40-50%, optimal by the standards of the black market for the end user.
Waiting for the explosion
From 2005 to 2009, huge stocks of opium and heroin were accumulated in Afghanistan and along the borders: according to UNODC estimates, from 10,000 to 12,000 tons of opium equivalent. This is enough to supply the whole world for at least three more years, even if the poppy crops in Afghanistan disappear tomorrow. Over the past 15 years, the recycling situation has only worsened.
Iran has become a repository of huge drug stocks. As Pelich notes, we are talking about entire warehouses, dozens of hectares occupied by seized substances. And here a catastrophic problem arises: there is nothing and no one to destroy the seized.
"Iran's appeals to international organizations asking for help in destroying these storage facilities were ignored for political reasons," the expert states.
The international community willingly sent monitoring missions to record the volume of seizures and count the dead Iranian policemen, but no real help was offered in disposing of tons of toxic substances, Pelikh says, citing information from his foreign colleagues.
— As a result, warehouses have been clogged with confiscated goods for decades, which remains a time bomb.
The domino principle
The rise of the Taliban movement to power in Afghanistan in 2021 has not changed the situation. Despite the statements about the fight against drugs and the reduction of crops, the accumulated stocks and established sales channels have not gone away.
"Before the arrival of the Taliban, a lot of opium and ready—made heroin had already been accumulated on the borders with Iran," Pelikh recalls.
Moreover, military and political instability itself always plays into the hands of traffic. Chaos is an ideal environment for drug trafficking. And today, Iran, which has held back this wave for decades, has found itself in the position of a fortress that is being stormed from two sides: from within — socio-economic problems, from outside — foreign policy pressure and incessant provocations on the borders, the Izvestia interlocutor believes.
Sergey Pelikh warns of a scenario that could become reality in the coming years.
— If Iran loses this war, if border controls weaken, all these accumulated stocks, all this confiscated heroin may just end up on the world market.
Technically, this will be implemented through the very seaports mentioned in the UNODC report. Container shipping is a "black hole" of global traffic. More than 400 million containers are transported annually, and only 2% of them are inspected. Drugs can go anywhere in the world through the ports of Bandar Abbas or Bushehr.
"This will be a huge blow to global security," the expert is sure. — Logistics will allow us to export such volumes that we will simply gasp.
The coming era of heroin
Pelich and his foreign colleagues are confident that the consequences of the weakening of the Iranian barrier will be felt all over the planet. Europe, which is already experiencing a surge in the consumption of synthetic opioids, will receive a powerful impetus to return to cheap natural heroin.
Russia, according to Pelikh, is in a deferred risk zone.
— European consumption spikes usually reach us in about two years. This means that the situation that will develop tomorrow on Iran's borders will hit Turkey and Europe the day after tomorrow, and then return to the streets of Russian cities, throwing us back to the gloomy figures of the 1990s and 2000s.
The 2011 UNODC report was prescient in many ways. He pointed to Iran as the main line of defense. Years later, this line remains just as important, but has become much more fragile.
While the international community continues to ignore requests for help in destroying stocks and confines itself to political declarations, "explosive" material continues to accumulate in Iranian warehouses.
"The only way to avoid a catastrophe is to stop looking at Iran as a problem and start seeing it as a key partner in solving one of the main global threats of our time,— says Sergey Pelikh. — There is no more time to rock up.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
