ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — More than 6,000 people suspected of taking or dealing drugs were arrested across Iraq in 11 months of 2020, a top anti-narcotics official has told Rudaw.
"More than 6,000 suspects were arrested" between January and the end of November last year, Mazin al Quraishi, director of the Ministry of Interior’s Narcotics Control Department told Rudaw's Hawraz Gulpi in a December 23 interview aired this week.
More than 120 kilogrammes of crystal meth and 270 kilogrammes of cannabis were seized during the same period, he added.
Iraq has a growing drugs problem, made worse by its proximity to Iran – a major hub for drug smuggling. According to the official, the most common drug found in Iraq is crystal meth, which is smuggled through Iran from Afghanistan. Iraq’s weak border control has seen its role in drug smuggling grow, according to Quraishi, who says Captagon – a popular drug in the Middle East – is smuggled from Syria through Anbar and Najaf, where it is then taken to Saudi Arabia.
Around 75 to 80 percent of drugs are smuggled through ports in southern Iraq, as well as the borders with Kuwait and Iran, the department’s development director told Rudaw in November.
The Iranian border in particular is vulnerable to drug trafficking “by Iranian citizens who enter the country for tourism and other purposes,” he added.
Domestic drug abuse has also grown, according to Quraishi.
"There is a significant increase in drug abuse rates in the past two years because of weak borders control, especially in the areas which were controlled by ISIS," he said.
According to a law adopted in 2017, "anyone who imports, produces or possesses narcotic drugs" can be fined or imprisoned for one to three years, and a life sentence given to those found guilty of running drug dens, legal expert Tarek Harb told Al-Monitor in November.
Regarding the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Quraishi said that the KRG is very cooperative when it comes to combatting drug smuggling.
"About less than a week ago, a drug dealer was arrested at Erbil Airport, in cooperation with KRG authorities, for the purpose of extraditing the suspect against whom an arrest warrant was issued in Karbala governorate," he said.
He added "that the ministry is sending a delegation to KRG soon to strengthen cooperation on information-sharing to build a better understanding about drug smuggling methods in Kurdistan.”
Additional reporting by Dilan Sirwan
