Tehran, Feb 22 (IANS): Iran's border guards have seized 81 vessels carrying smuggled goods over the past 12 days and arrested 145 smugglers, state media report said.

Commander of the Iranian Border Guards, Ahmad-Ali Goudarzi told reporters on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of an exhibition of items confiscated by Iranian border police in the southern province of Bushehr, the semi-official Tasnim news agency report said on Tuesday.

The seizures and arrests were made as part of the nationwide anti-smuggling operations, codenamed Ra'ad (Thunder), which started on February 9, said Goudarzi, adding the value of the impounded items during the past seven days amount to $14 million, Xinhua news agency reported.

He said in one of the operations, Iranian border guards seized 2 million litre of smuggled fuel in the country's southern waters over the past 24 hours. In another operation, a vessel carrying smuggled American-made cold weapons, comprising 5,000 swords and machetes, was confiscated off the coast of Bushehr province.

Goudarzi added that all the 145 smugglers arrested within the past days have been handed over to judicial authorities and will receive severe punishments.

He said that 3,000 firearms were seized in the border areas over the past four months, adding that since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year on March 21, 2022, a total of 60 ton of narcotics have been confiscated.