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4 Detained after Germany’s Largest Ever Heroin Seizure Traced Back to Iran

German police seen in Potsdam's central train station, on June 26, 2020. (Getty Images)
German police seen in Potsdam's central train station, on June 26, 2020. (Getty Images)
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4 Detained after Germany’s Largest Ever Heroin Seizure Traced Back to Iran

German police seen in Potsdam's central train station, on June 26, 2020. (Getty Images)
German police seen in Potsdam's central train station, on June 26, 2020. (Getty Images)

Four people were detained after police made their largest ever seizure of heroin in Germany, prosecutors said on Friday, with police confiscating some 700 kilograms (1,543 pounds) as part of an operation against a gang smuggling narcotics from Iran.

The drugs were seized in the port city of Hamburg at the end of August. The detentions were made overnight on Thursday, when police searched 10 premises in the eastern cities of Dresden and Chemnitz, in Hamburg and in the Netherlands.

They seized documents, laptops, storage devices, smartphones and vehicles.

The detained were an unnamed 40-year-old Turkish-Serbian suspected ringleader, a 35-year-old Iranian in the Netherlands, a 54-year-old German suspected of using his firm's logistics fleet to transport drugs, and a 53-year-old Turkish go-between.

One was detained in Germany, one in Spain, and two others in the Netherlands. Prosecutors are seeking the extraditions of the three who were arrested abroad, while a court in Dresden is due to decide on Friday whether the person detained in Germany should be placed under arrest.

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US Issues New Sanctions on Iran as Trump Seeks Talks

The Treasury Department building is seen, March 13, 2025, in Washington. (AP)
The Treasury Department building is seen, March 13, 2025, in Washington. (AP)
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US Issues New Sanctions on Iran as Trump Seeks Talks

The Treasury Department building is seen, March 13, 2025, in Washington. (AP)
The Treasury Department building is seen, March 13, 2025, in Washington. (AP)

The United States issued fresh sanctions on Iran on Wednesday, the Treasury Department said, two days after President Donald Trump announced the US planned direct talks with Tehran over its nuclear program.

The department designated five entities and one person based in Iran for their support of Iran's nuclear program, Treasury said in a statement, with the aim of denying Iran a nuclear weapon.

The designated groups played a crucial role in supporting two previously sanctioned entities that manage the country's nuclear program: the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) and its subordinate, The Iran Centrifuge Technology Company (TESA), Treasury said.

The action comes after Trump made a surprise announcement on Monday that the United States and Iran were poised to begin direct talks on Tehran's nuclear program, but Iran's foreign minister said the discussions in Oman would be indirect.

In a further sign of the difficult path to any deal between the two geopolitical foes, Trump issued a stark warning that if the talks were unsuccessful, "Iran is going to be in great danger."

The Iran Centrifuge Technology Company is crucial to Iran’s uranium enrichment efforts through the production of centrifuges, Treasury said in a statement.

The person targeted by the new sanctions is Majid Mosallat, managing director of the Atbin Ista Technical and Engineering Company, which Treasury said helps the company acquire components from foreign suppliers.

"The Iranian regime’s reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons remains a grave threat to the United States and a menace to regional stability and global security," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the statement.