Gang Of Antique Smugglers Arrested In Iran - Police

The Iranian police have arrested five people who intended to smuggle almost 4,000 antique items from the country at Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran, Chief of Crime Prevention Police Department Reza Bani Asadifar said on Tuesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th June, 2023) The Iranian police have arrested five people who intended to smuggle almost 4,000 antique items from the country at Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran, Chief of Crime Prevention Police Department Reza Bani Asadifar said on Tuesday.

The smugglers were planning on exporting the items to an Arab country the police official did not name.

"With the assistance of colleagues who specialize in smuggling-related crime, following a thorough search of the luggage, we have found and seized 3,680 items of historical value, which were very cleverly hidden inside the suitcases," Bani Asadifar was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

He also said, citing experts, that the recovered items belong to various periods of Iran's history, including the period BC. Bani Asadifar emphasized that this was the first and the largest organized international group of antique smugglers discovered in Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.