US Navy arrests $ 4 million heroin shipment in Arabian Sea
Photo: Yiannis Kourtoglou / Reuters
Ships of the United States Navy's Fifth Fleet (US Navy) seized a shipment of heroin worth about $ 4 million from the Arabian Sea. This was reported by ABC News.
During an international anti-drug operation in the Middle East region, patrol ships USS Tempest and USS Typhoon arrested a stateless fishing vessel. The Navy said that most likely it belongs to Iran, since all nine crew members turned out to be Iranian citizens.
The total weight of the arrested heroin was 385 kilograms. In total, during the operation, it was possible to arrest the volume of drug trafficking worth $ 193 million. ABC News notes that Iran continues to be the main part of the transit route for Afghan heroin to the Middle East due to the length of the Afghan-Iranian border (1,932 kilometers).
On November 17, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) issued a report from which it became known that the production of opium (the main raw material for heroin) in Afghanistan in 2021 increased by eight percent compared to 2020.
In 2021, approximately 320 tons of pure Afghan heroin were exported to the world market. The report clarifies that today heroin from Afghanistan accounts for 80 percent of world opiate consumption, while in 2020 this figure reached 85 percent.
