Conflict Incident Report

Police managed to foil a major drug smuggling attempt to Saudi Arabia, the Internal Security Forces announced. ISF said that in cooperation with Saudi security forces, police managed to avert an attempt to smuggle six million Captagon pills fron Beirut to Riyadh. It remains unclear where the operation was carried out.

Captagon, a psycho-stimulant amphetamine, is one of the most commonly used drugs among fighters in the Syrian war. Fighters who have taken the drug say it helps them to stay up for days and numbs the senses, allowing them to kill with abandon.

“They stopped the suspects right before smuggling the items,” a security source told The Daily Star.

The suspects were arrested and referred to the judiciary for further investigation as work is underway to arrest all those involved in the criminal network. French customs officials said in May that they had intercepted 135 kilograms of Captagon, dubbed the "jihadists' drug", at Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport this year, a first for France. The Captagon was hidden among industrial moulds exported from Lebanon and apparently heading for the Czech Republic. Captagon seizures in Lebanon have become routine as the conflict in Syria enters its seventh year. Also, in May, State Security seized three Captagon-manufacturing machines and arrested two suspects while they were moving the machines to Asiri neighborhood in the eastern city of Baalbeck. Lebanon’s Finance Ministry reported last October that authorities had seized 1 million pills of Captagon bound for Saudi Arabia at the Tripoli Port.