An Iranian ship carrying heroin was seized on March 24 near the coastline of Sri Lanka, according to a number of news agencies citing Sri Lankan coast guard officials.
Following the confiscation of the narcotics onboard, Sri Lankan security officials were able to retrieve leads indicating how the main elements behind this consignment intended to take a flight out of Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan Police Narcotics Bureau conducted an extensive investigation, learning about the actual owner of this consignment staying at the Hilton Hotel in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital. However, they had departed the hotel just hours earlier, heading for Colombo’s Bandaranaike International Airport.
As time was running out, Sri Lankan Police Narcotics Bureau officials were able to arrest two Iranian suspects by the names of Mohammad Massoud Zahedian and Mohammad Bakhshandeh at the airport.
Further investigation showed the two arrested Iranian nationals were actually Brigadier General Mohammad Massoud Zahedian, Iran’s Anti-Narcotics Police chief, and Colonel Mohammad Bakhshandeh, chief of Tehran’s Anti-Narcotics Police.
Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry officials are saying officials of Iran’s embassy in Colombo have confirmed the identity of the two arrested individuals. Furthermore, embassy officials informed Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry officials that Mohammad Zaeri, the mullahs’ ambassador to Sri Lanka, was on vacation for Nowruz, the Iranian calendar new year.
Based on the investigation of Sri Lankan security officials, the Iranian ship carrying the heroin consignment was headed for Europe. However, to cover its tracks, the ship took off from a Pakistani port heading for Sri Lanka, stopping in Hambantota Port to carry out administrative work and thus head off for Europe.
The Hambantota Port is a stopping point on one of the most important shipping lines linking Asia and Europe. This port was handed over to a Chinese government company based on a 99-year contract.
According to a senior official of the Khatam al-Anbia Construction Company in Iran – known to be linked directly to the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) – the state police of Iran, NAJA, has been resorting to smuggling narcotics recently for money-laundering purposes. The final destination of this drug smuggling is Europe, according to this official, and the profit is placed in European banks and financial institutions. Much of the money laundering is handled on European soil, he added.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry has remained silent on the subject of Zahedian and Bakhshandeh being arrested in Sri Lanka. It is believed this actually confirms their arrests to some extent.
Brigadier General Mohammad Massoud Zahedian, Iran’s Anti-Narcotics Police Chief
It is interesting to know that Zahedian had “warned” that U.S. sanctions targeting the equipment needed to “fight” drug traffickers can slow down Iran’s “effective efforts” to this end and “increase” the traffic of narcotics to Europe.
“We should buy these equipment and they are needed. The sanctions include all equipment and we hope that this will not happen because we will possibly face problem in discovering drugs and (then) they (the European governments) should collect kilos of narcotics from Europe with difficulty,” Zahedian told reporters in Tehran back in October 2018.
Leave a Reply