In an interview with Ahmad Anaraki, Member of Parliament and Chairman of the Committee on the Investigation of the Process of Combating Smuggling, Ghanoon writes that less than 2% of goods smuggled into the country are discovered. Mr. Anaraki stated that the main method of combating smuggling is developing systems to track the movement path and legality of goods. Some of these systems such as the customs system have progressed by 70% while others, such as the comprehensive insurance system have only progressed by 10%. This lack of coordination between organizations leads to problems in other sectors, such as insurance industry. Mr. Anaraki points to this disorder: “For example, certain smuggled goods are covered by insurance.If the goods are seized in the future, what is to happen to the insurance company and insurer?”
A successful implementation of counter smuggling actions can be seen in the cell phone registration project which has nearly stopped the smuggling of cell phones. Mr. Anaraki pointed that it is not possible to have exact figures for illegal activities such as smuggling and added that the value of goods smuggled into the country is estimated at 12.5 billion dollars. Other estimates point to a figure as high as 20 billion dollars. Among these, 3.6 billion dollars in goods are smuggled via carriers on the western border and 2.6 billion dollars in goods are smuggled into the country via fishing vessels.
Mr. Anaraki added that previously, of the 3000 containers entering a port, only 350 were examined. However currently, new X-Ray machines have been bought by customs which allow a larger amount of suspicious cargo to be examined.
