Malaysian customs officials said Saturday they had arrested two Iranian men and seized heroin worth $12.6 million in the country’s biggest drug haul of the year. Central Selangor customs director Azis Yacub told state media that officials seized 278 packages of the drug during checks on five containers filled with cement bags at Port Klang on April 28, following surveillance by authorities. “The drugs, wrapped in plastic sheets were found stashed in 560 bags of cement in the containers which were shipped from Karachi, Pakistan,” he told Bernama, but did not say why authorities were only now announcing the bust.
“Investigations into the drug’s destination are under way,” he added. Azis told local newspapers that if the heroin had been processed, its street value would have been three times as much. “This is an astronomical amount,” he told the New Straits Times. State anti-narcotics officials who were involved in the bust told AFP on condition of anonymity that the drugs seized weighed 214.5 kilos and that investigations show the two Iranians are part of an international drug smuggling syndicate that police are trying to shut down. There has been a steep increase in the number of alleged Iranian drug traffickers caught in Malaysia, with 138 arrested from January to October last year compared with 16 in the whole of 2009.
Iran’s ambassador to Malaysia has said international criminal gangs are using Iranians to smuggle drugs into the country. The latest bust follows the arrest of two Iranians and the seizure of 4.5 kilos (10 pounds) of methamphetamine earlier this month in southern Malaysia. In April, nine Iranians were arrested with the seizure of more than 70 kilos of methamphetamine as well as seven million ringgit ($2.3 million) in foreign currency in the capital Kuala Lumpur. Police said the nine were believed to be using Malaysia as a base to supply drugs to Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia.
