A 21-year-old West Vancouver man has landed in court after landing in Richmond with five kilograms of opium.

Mohammadreza Haratisani was arrested at Vancouver International Airport Sept. 5 for allegedly trying to smuggle the drug -- which can be smoked or turned into heroin -- into Canada via Iran and Amsterdam.

The bust came within days of a large seizure of opium poppy heads in Delta for the production of doda -- a mild opiate that is popular in South Asian communities.

Canada Border Services officers at Vancouver International Airport became suspicious, based on Haratisani's points of origin -- Tehran via Amsterdam -- and his declarations to CBSA officers.

"There were inconsistencies in the declaration that he was making," CBSA officer Lorraine Leger said at a press conference at the Richmond RCMP detachment, where the five kilos of raw opium were on display.

She added: "Tehran is known as a trans-shipment point for narcotics."

Haratisani's luggage was searched and CBSA officers found what they believed to be opium inside boxes of Iranian candy and packages of hookah pipe tobacco.

RCMP were called in and Haratisani was arrested. He appeared in court Sept. 7 and was denied bail. He remained in custody and was to appear again in court Thursday morning to face charges of possession and importation of a controlled substance.

Richmond RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Sherrdean Turley said it was unusual to see raw opium seizures in Richmond. Heroin, which is manufactured from opium, is more common.

"Opium is quite bulky and chunky and it's hard to smuggle," Turley said. "It's chemically broken down and made into heroin because it is easier to smuggle that way, so I'm not sure why they tried to bring it to Canada like this."

It appears the importation of opium to British Columbia could be on the rise. In the Pacific region, CBSA made 28 seizures of raw opium in 2009 and has already made 45 seizures this year, worth $172 million, Leger said.

Turley said police don't know if the recent seizure of opium was intended to be sold as-is (it can be smoked or eaten), or whether it was intended to be turned into heroin.

Nor do RCMP know where the opium originated, although if it was smuggled out of Iran it may have come from Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is the top producer of illegal opium in the world, and Iran has some of the highest rates of opium addiction in the world.

Another growing problem in B.C. appears to be the sale of doda in South Asian communities. Doda is made from opium poppy pods and is often brewed as tea. Drivers sometimes use it for the brief buzz it gives them.

Just last week, Delta police seized 36,000 opium poppy pods. It was the second such seizure in recent weeks in Delta, and in August RCMP in Chilliwack seized 60,000 opium poppy plants.

It's not the first time that North Shore residents have been arrested in connection with opium smuggling.

In January of this year, two North Vancouver men in their 50s were among four people initially arrested in connection with the largest-ever opium seizure in the province. The shipment of 56.8 kilograms of the drug arrived hidden inside a tombstone in an air cargo delivery from Iran on Jan. 6. No charges have yet been laid against any of those people.

In a previous opium-smuggling case, Reza Eshghabadi and his wife Ashraf Nabiloo, both North Vancouver residents, were handed two-year jail sentences for importing 1.5 kilograms of opium hidden in picture frames that arrived with a shipment of glassware from Dubai in November of 2003.

Another West Vancouver opium smuggler, Navid Pirouz, who smuggled more than three kilograms of the drug into Canada by mailing it to himself inside boxes of chocolate, was handed a conditional sentence in 2008.