Syria: interior ministry seizes 12 million captagon pills
The interior ministry of Syria announced on October 20th that it seized roughly 12 million captagon pills during a drug bust on smugglers who were operating near the capital of Damascus, according to The New Arab via AFP.Â
Reportedly, this is one of the biggest busts since the transitional administration entered power late last year.Â
In a ministry statement, anti-Narcotics department director Brigadier General Khaled Eid, said that after “precise monitoring and tracking of a smuggling network attempting to traffic large quantities of narcotics abroad . . . around 12 million captagon pills in the Al-Dumayr area” were captured by security forces. Eid also said that the drug network’s leader was arrested.
The drug is comparable to an amphetamine and was the Middle Eastern nation’s biggest export during the civil war that started in 2011. The trade of the drug was a major contributor towards the funding for the regime of Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s ex-leader.Â
An investigation by AFP from 2022 discovered that during the former Syrian regime, the drug’s industry which was valued at $10 billion at the time, was more dominant than other exports.
Syria’s new authorities have reported several large-scale seizures of captagon within the nation. What’s more, countries near Syria are still reporting foiled shipments of the drug. It was reported on June 5th that Anas Khattab, Syria’s interior minister, claimed that all captagon drug production facilities had been shut down.Â
On January 19th, roughly 100 million captagon pills were destroyed by Syrian security forces, as part of an operation which saw the destruction of seized drugs, according to The New Arab and agencies. Â
Iraq’s authorities declared on October 17th 2024, that they had seized over half a million captagon pills, The Arab Weekly plus agencies reported.
A drug trafficking network’s attempt to smuggle both captagon and cannabis into Saudi Arabia was prevented by Lebanese authorities, The National via Lebanon’s National News Agency reported on September 15th.
Lebanon’s interior minister, Ahmad Hajjar said that security officials seized “6.5 million Captagon pills and 700kg of cannabis,” which could have otherwise reached Saudi Arabia.Â
The New Arab, AFP, The Arab Weekly plus agencies, The National via Lebanon’s National News Agency, Maghrebi.org
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