The Iraqi authorities announced this Saturday the seizure of more than three million "narcotic pills" hidden in shipments of fruit at a border post with Syria, it was reported in an official statement.
Seizing the pills "which include different types of narcotic pills" took place at the Al Qaem outpost, in the Al Anbar Governorate (west), and "they were hidden inside apple boxes in a truck"the Border Ports Authority said in the statement, according to the official Iraqi news agency, INA.
He indicated that the Police detained the driver of the truck, without specifying his nationality, and that the intelligence services were monitoring the detainee. "after receiving information from secret sources" about an attempt to introduce "a large number of narcotic pills" in the country.
Although he did not disclose the country of origin or the type of pills seized, Iraq and other Arab neighbors, particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have been targeted in recent years by Captagon traffickers from Lebanon and Syria, a country that has been become a production center for that drug due to the instability caused by the Syrian armed conflict.
The Emirati authorities announced at the end of February the seizure of 4.5 million Captagon tablets hidden in cans of beans, in one of the most important smuggling operations in the Gulf country.
Drug trafficking is punished in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia with long prison terms and even the death penalty.
Captagon is an amphetamine that suppresses feelings of fear and fatigue, and was widely used by fighters of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group that conquered large territories in Iraq and Syria in 2014.