DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – United States Navy ships seized 385 kilograms (849 pounds) of heroin worth about $ 4 million in the Arabian Sea, in a major raid on the international maritime operation in the region, officials said Thursday.
The USS Tempest and USS Typhoon seized the drugs hidden aboard an unflagged fishing vessel sailing in Middle Eastern waters. The seizure took place on Monday.
The Navy said the fishing boat likely came from Iran. The nine crew members identified themselves as Iranian nationals, reported Commander Timothy Hawkins, a spokesman for the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet stationed in the Middle East.
Hawkins did not elaborate on who made the drugs or their final destination.
As the Navy increases its regional patrols, it has seized more than 193 million worth of drugs during operations at sea this year, more than the amount of drugs seized in the last four years combined, according to its statement.
Heroin is trafficked to the Middle East and even Europe overland from Iran and Afghanistan via heavily traveled overland routes in the Balkans, the southern Caucasus mountains or Saudi Arabia, according to the UN Global Synthetic Drug Assessment of the year. last. More and more smugglers from Iran are using sea routes to bring heroin to South Asia, the report added. Iranian and Pakistani sailors are often arrested near Sri Lanka.
Iran’s porous 1,923-kilometer eastern border with Afghanistan, the world’s largest opium producer, has made it a key drug trafficking country.