Hours after implementing a so-called Comprehensive Plan of Overnight Security and Peace, the deputy commander of the Greater Tehran’s Police Operations says “288 foreign citizens, drug addicts, narcotics dealers, burglars, thugs and ruffians”, were arrested.
Deputy commander Parviz Yaqoubi said said that 120 people in this group were criminals and 68 were illegal immigrants.
Furthermore, Yaqoubi maintained, “89 businesses that had violated the law were sealed off, 136 polluted sites were cleansed, 28 illegal guns were discovered and confiscated, and 68 illegal foreign immigrants were detained across the capital”.
Most of the illegal immigrants were apparently Afghan citizens.
The operation, as deputy commander Yaghoubi has put it, was the largest show of force after recent anti-establishment protests broke out on December 28 and soon spread to more than 100 cities across Iran.
Adding to the list of “achievements” of the overnight operation, Yaqoubi boasted of disbanding four gangs involved in procuring and distributing of narcotics, arresting forty drug addicts, detaining fourteen major drug dealers, confiscating 252 kilograms (roughly 9,000 oz) of different narcotics, as well as arresting 31 petty drug dealers.
However, the value of the contraband goods confiscated during the operation involving hundreds of Tehran’s Police officers, according to Yaqoubi, amounted strangely to a meager 150 million rials (roughly $4,000).
Meanwhile, Yaqoubi also said that 95 vehicles and forty motorbikes were confiscated, 35 drivers tested for their health status and fifteen burglars placed behind bars.
“One of the detained burglars was disguised as a traffic officer”, Yaqoubi disclosed.
In a separate report, the chief-commander of Greater Tehran Police Force, General Hossein Rahimi affirmed that “hundreds of the expert Police officers” participated in the overnight operation.
The Comprehensive Plan of Overnight Security and Peace, as Gen. Rahimi has put it, was not limited to Monday night and is going to be implemented from now on.
Based on different independent sources, after the recent uprising that shocked Iran’s ruling system, the security and police forces of the Islamic Republic have intensified their active presence particularly in major cities across Iran.