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Billion dollar smuggling industry drains Iran's economy

Partly due to sanctions, smuggling of drugs, cigarettes and cosmetics is widespread in Iran and some question whether government organizations are implicated.
Iranian smugglers load goods at the Omani port of Khasab September 26, 2012. Until recently the Iranian boats and their fearless young skippers escorted several cargoes a day across the narrow Strait of Hormuz - loaded with everything from soft drinks to mobile phones and cosmetics - bought in the flourishing trading centres of the United Arab Emirates and sold to merchants in Iran. The proximity of Iran to the UAE and Oman and their historic trade and finance links have supported thriving trade, which in r
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Habibollah Haghighi, chief of an Iranian task force to combat smuggling, announced that up to $25 billion worth of contraband was smuggled into the country between March 2013 and March 2014. Haghighi's announcement came during a Jan. 22 meeting in Qom among seminary heads, in which he stated that the "trafficking of contraband goods hindered domestic production and had negative impacts on the economic, health care, medical and cultural sectors." According to the official, the amount of contraband over the year was double the country's development budgets.

Iran's Central Task Force to Combat the Smuggling of Commodities and Currency, formed by direct order of the supreme leader, is affiliated with the Presidential Office, with the task force head serving as the president's special representative. On July 3, 2002, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued an order establishing the office, stating: "Growth of trafficking and its harmful impacts on manufacturing, legal trade, investment and employment is a serious and significant danger that should be fought with full force. All relevant departments are obliged to play their role in this combat."

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