Basra police dismantle four drug trafficking networks, arrest 14 suspects

BASRA — Iraq’s General Directorate for Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Affairs said it dismantled four criminal networks involved in drug trafficking in Basra governorate and arrested 14 suspects during operations carried out over the past week.

In a statement, the directorate said Basra’s anti-narcotics units conducted a series of security and intelligence operations that resulted in the breakup of the networks and the arrest of their members.

The directorate said the operations followed intelligence-gathering and surveillance efforts that led to the arrest of a suspect wanted by the judiciary and subject to multiple arrest warrants in connection with criminal cases including murder, robbery and armed theft, in addition to drug trafficking.

Two officers from Basra’s Directorate of Narcotics Affairs were injured during confrontations with members of the groups while carrying out the operations, according to the statement.

The directorate attributed the results to coordination between security and intelligence agencies, support from Basra Police Command, and cooperation with the investigating judge responsible for narcotics cases.

It said efforts to pursue drug traffickers would continue and called on citizens to report suspected drug trafficking, promotion or use, describing public cooperation as an important tool in combating narcotics-related activities.

The arrests come as Iraq faces a deepening drug crisis. The country has evolved from a transit corridor into both a consumer market and redistribution hub, with traffickers increasingly using sophisticated cross-border networks and, in some cases, GPS-equipped balloons to move drugs across the Anbar border. Iraq’s judiciary issued 26 death sentences against drug traffickers in the first quarter of 2026 alone.

Between January and August 2024, courts issued 140 death sentences and 500 life sentences in trafficking cases, with 3,006 arrests recorded in the first quarter of 2025.