ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Kurdistan Region's anti-narcotics authorities said on Thursday that they had seized over 32 kilograms of drugs and arrested two suspected smugglers in two days of raids.

The two suspects were arrested in Akre, Duhok province by the Asayesh (internal security) forces, read a statement from the anti-narcotics directorate’s Erbil office.

The suspects were in possession of 26 kilograms of heroin between them, which they they had successfully smuggled into the Kurdistan Region from Iran, according to the statement.

On Wednesday, over six kilograms of narcotics were seized at Erbil International Airport, ready to be sent abroad, an official from the anti-narcotics directorate told Rudaw.

This week’s arrests and seizures come amid an increase in the amount of drugs smuggled into the Kurdistan Region this year – detailed in a report to be released in the next few days, the official added.

There were 651 drug-related arrests in the Kurdistan Region in the first six months of 2019.

Iraq as a whole has seen a significant rise in drug trafficking in the civil unrest unleashed following the American invasion in 2003, Brigadier Raad Ali Hussein, director of the Ministry of Interior’s anti-narcotics directorate told Rudaw’s Rebwar Ali in a radio interview on Sunday.

“The numbers [of those abusing drugs] are getting dangerously high,” Hussein told Rudaw, noting that most users are between 18 to 28 years, but many are as young as 15.

An Iraqi law adopted in 2017 on Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances punishes those found guilty with imprisonment with fines ranging from 5-10 million dinars (around $4,200-$8,400) or between one and three years imprisonment for “anyone who imports, produces or possesses narcotic drugs,” legal expert Tarek Harb told Al-Monitor in November.

“Article 288 of the same law stipulates a life imprisonment sentence for every person who sets up a place for drug abuse,” he added.

Rudaw