Captagon seized by the Lebanese Internal Security Forces. (Credit: Twitter/@LebISF)
BEIRUT – Thousands of captagon pills packed for smuggling were seized and two alleged smugglers were taken into custody by the Internal Security Forces in Tripoli on Feb. 12, the agency announced in a statement on Friday.
Here’s what we know:
• The statement announced that two suspects, allegedly belonging to a drug smuggling network, whom ISF had been trailing for five months, were found with 30,000 pills, or around 5 kilograms, of the illicit stimulant hidden in hookahs destined for shipment to an unspecified African country.
• On Tuesday, the Lebanese army seized a “large quantity of captagon” hidden in a van.
• Lebanon has often come under scrutiny by the Gulf countries for failing to regulate drug trafficking operations from Lebanon or in transit through Lebanese territories.
• In April 2021, Riyadh decided to suspend its imports of fruits and vegetables from Lebanon after more than five million pills of Captagon hidden in pomegranates that had transited through Lebanon were seized in Saudi Arabia.