Iran faces a confluence of economic woes: widespread poverty, skyrocketing prices (particularly for food), business recessions, high unemployment, and dwindling purchasing power. These factors have bred a new kind of social harm – the theft of food.
Previously, street muggings targeted valuables like phones and wallets. Now, reports paint a concerning picture: impoverished citizens stealing food from others. Thieves snatch shopping bags or groceries directly from people’s hands, often containing essential food items.
Rokna news agency confirmed this alarming trend in a report titled “Goods Mugging: A New Face of Theft.” They documented the rise of food theft, including meat and nuts, in Tehran, attributing it to escalating inflation. The report emphasizes the correlation: “As prices rise, petty crimes increase.”
Experts consider this phenomenon a “serious societal alarm bell.” Economist Majid Gudarzi criticizes the regime’s economic policies, warning that the current trend will lead to a surge in food and goods theft, posing a grave threat.
Highlighting the dire financial straits of Iranians, he states, “Last year’s price hikes jeopardized livelihoods, forcing the lower classes to remove basic items from their shopping lists.” Gudarzi emphasizes the plight of working-class families, who “have replaced meat and chicken with eggs and potatoes to afford basic nutrition,” struggling even to secure proper housing.
Statistics reveal a significant rise in bread consumption as rice becomes increasingly unaffordable. Gudarzi dismisses the government’s short-term solutions like “Fajrane coupons” and “temporary subsidies” as mere “smoke and mirrors.” He emphasizes a simple fact: people’s purchasing power has drastically decreased compared to previous years.
The link between widening poverty and increased social ills is undeniable. As poverty expands, so does theft. Official police data corroborates this: nearly half of petty theft perpetrators are “first-time offenders.”
Tejarat News, an economic website, reported a significant rise in thefts in recent years: “Over 1.18 million theft cases were registered last year, in a nation of approximately 84.7 million people. This translates to a 12% increase over the previous year and a staggering 86% increase compared to 2008, when the population was around 76 million.”
The report reveals even starker figures: theft from private and public places has skyrocketed by over 409% and 279% respectively in the past decade. Shop theft has also increased by 73%. These figures represent only officially reported cases. Many petty thefts, like purse snatching, likely go unrecorded.
Despite regime claims of “inflation control” and “economic growth,” statistics paint a grim picture. The steep rise in prices has forced essential food items off the tables of working-class families and the poor. Labor activists warn that “high-quality protein” has entirely vanished from many people’s shopping baskets.
Official statistics from the Iran Statistics Center in February reveal that at least 38% of food products experienced inflation exceeding the annual general inflation rate. Additionally, out of 53 tracked food items in urban areas, at least 20 saw annual price changes exceeding the national inflation rate, with protein sources leading the pack.
