BAGHDAD (AFP) – Iraqi authorities on Saturday said they seized three million pills of captagon, an amphetamine-type stimulant that has been sweeping the Middle East for years, near the Syrian border.
The pills had been hidden in apple crates “loaded onto a refrigerator truck” and discovered at the Al-Qaim crossing between Syria’s Deir Ezzor province and western Iraq’s Anbar desert region, the Iraqi border authority said.
The truck driver had been arrested, the agency added in a statement. A border authority official told AFP that the shipment from Syria into Iraq contained captagon pills produced by several manufacturers.
Iraqi security forces have intensified narcotics operations in recent months, with several high-profile drug seizures reported.
Sharing borders with Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait and other countries, Iraq has served as a major conduit for traffickers of captagon, which is primarily produced in Syria.
