PostedJuly 22, 2022, 2:40 p.m.
Saudi ArabiaSeizure of nearly 15 million captagon pills
Saudi customs have foiled a vast attempt to smuggle captagon pills, a drug from the amphetamine family, which is wreaking havoc in the kingdom.
File photo of bags containing captagon, a banned stimulant, released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on November 30, 2021.
AFP
Saudi authorities announced on Friday the seizure of nearly 15 million pills of captagon, a drug from the amphetamine family, which is wreaking havoc in the kingdom and throughout the region. The largest economy in the Arab world, the oil monarchy of the Gulf is the largest market for captagon, where it is used for recreational purposes but also to be able to work more.
Customs “thwarted an attempt to smuggle a large quantity of captagon, amounting to 14,976,000 pills”, they announced, quoted by the official SPA news agency. The pills had been concealed in “a machine intended to make concrete blocks” and arrived by freight at the port of Jeddah, in the west of the kingdom, authorities said.
Frequent entries
Saudi Arabia regularly announces this type of seizures, with captagon coming mainly from Syria and transiting through Lebanon via shipments, in particular of fruits and vegetables.
Customs said it seized a total of 119 million pills last year. The 2022 figures in the region show that traffic continues to grow. The Gulf countries, led by Saudi Arabia, have long criticized Lebanon for its lack of commitment in the fight against this traffic, accusing the Hezbollah movement of being the main instigator. Several recent reports have accused senior officials of President Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime of being at the heart of this burgeoning traffic.
“Captagon” is the trade name of a drug patented in Germany in the 1960s and believed to treat narcolepsy or attention deficit disorder. Subsequently banned, it became an illicit drug almost exclusively used in the Middle East.
(AFP)