Conflict Incident Report

The Internal Security Forces announced that it had arrested three people belonging to an international drug network that used bottles of spirits to smuggle cocaine into Lebanon to be sold to Lebanese dealers.
The arrests were made by the ISF’s Information Branch over the past two months and came after a process of several months’ surveillance, a statement said. This enabled the unit to identify eight people belonging to an “international organization specializing in smuggling to Lebanon large amounts of cocaine, which would be mixed with liquid.”
The drugs would be smuggled into the country through alcohol bottles packed in duty free bags from an international airport, the statement said.

Lebanese Y.Sh., born in 1996, is among those connected to the network. He currently has 75 warrants for his arrest for drug-related crimes and murder, and was arrested by a special unit for the Information Branch on April 5 in Mansourieh, the statement said. “During investigations with him, he admitted to heading to Beirut from his home in Bekaa to receive the drugs,” the ISF said adding that Y.Sh. confessed to using a car belonging to Lebanese Sheikh G.Z., born in 1964, who was aware of and participated in the process.