Group Smuggling Girls to Persian Gulf States Busted

Iran News (Tehran)

Posted Wednesday February 7, 2001 - 09:51:53 AM EST

Tehran - A corrupt band engaged in the smuggling of young Iranian girls to Persian Gulf states to engage in the illicit sex trade, have been arrested by security forces, the Head of the Tehran Justice Department Abbas-Ali Alizadeh said in Shahr-e Rey yesterday. He said the group's tactics included seducing 13-year-old girls into giving their consent with promises of money and transporting them to customers in the Persian Gulf states.

"Some 90 percent of the girls' parents were addicted to illegal drugs or divorced," Alizadeh said, adding they were often accomplices in the illegal activity. The group were equipped with in-circuit surveillance cameras, mobile phones and other devices in their residences here, he said.

Special security forces, headed by the deputy chief of the Justice Department of the capital, have identified a considerable number of groups and intermediary persons involved in the smuggling of young girls, Alizadeh said. He added police in Tehran and neighboring Bumhen seized some 40,000 liters of domestically-produced as well as 14,000 liters of foreign alcoholic drinks last week.

According to the deputy, most of the corrupt bands are run and encouraged by enemies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, adding that a physical encounter would virtually be inefficient because of the complicated modus operandi of the groups. He called on the Iranian government, members of Parliament as well as the Judiciary to help in fighting the increasing debauchery and corruption confronting the country, adding that this needed the cultivation of strong cultural values in the country, IRNA reported.

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