ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Drug smugglers exploit the “porous” Iraq-Iran border to transport large amounts of drugs through Turkey into Europe, a researcher told Rudaw, as Baghdad continues to combat drugs and the trafficking networks.
Alexander Soderholm, a policy analyst at the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA), told Rudaw, a lot of drugs “have been smuggled overland through Iran and Turkey to European consumer markets.”
“It’s a possibility that some of that heroin has been smuggled into Iraq, prior to movement into Turkey for its shipment to Europe,” he added.
Soderhom said that previous research pointed to the permeable border between the two countries as a vulnerable point being exploited by traffickers and smugglers.
“We’ve also seen that the border between Iran and Iraq - in previous research - has been quite porous in some places,” he said, “which of course is a vulnerability in terms of drug traffickers, smugglers, and smugglers of other goods - using and exploiting those border points for smuggling illicit good from one country to the other.”
According to the EUDA researcher, there is a possibility that drugs have been transhipped to Europe through Iraq due to the existing vulnerability.
During a visit to Iraq in August 2023, Tom Tugendhat, then UK’s Minister of State (Minister for Security) told Rudaw that captagon posed a serious threat to Iraq, so London was eager to cooperate with the government of Shia’ al-Sudani, the Iraqi premier.
The United Kingdom was “looking to work with Iraqi security forces and with the Sudani government to make sure that we are facing this challenge,” according to Tugendhat.
He also blamed the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for exporting captagon to Iraq, effectively selling “misery” and “death” to Iraqi families.
Drug dealing and usage in Iraq is rising at an alarming rate, despite strict governmental measures to combat the phenomenon.
In July 2023, Sudani ordered the establishment of rehabilitation centers in all Iraqi provinces, excluding the Kurdistan Region, as part of his cabinet’s commitment to combat the growing drug trade and use as seriously as the country fights terrorism.
In 2023, more than 19,000 people were arrested across Iraq on drug-related charges, according to Baghdad, and over 15 tons of psychotropic substances were seized.
At least 17 drug suspects were killed in clashes with security forces in 2023, according to the Iraqi interior ministry.
In a quadrilateral meeting in Amman in mid-February, the interior ministers of Iraq, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon agreed to establish a joint communications cell to cooperate on the alarming rise of narcotics.
Niyaz Mustafa contributed to this report
