QAMISHLI, Syria —
Kurdish security forces in
northeastern Syria said Tuesday they had seized more than two million captagon
pills smuggled in from surrounding rebel-held areas, their biggest such bust to
date.
اضافة اعلان
The Asayish security forces said 438kg had been
seized, equivalent to 2,570,580 pills.
“This is the biggest captagon bust in northeastern
Syria,” a security official told AFP.
The pills were smuggled into Kurdish-held territory
from areas to the west controlled by Turkish-backed Syrian rebels.
“They were professionally concealed in construction
materials such as granite, basalt and ceramics,” Asayish officials said during
a press conference.
A security
official told AFP on condition of anonymity that the shipment was seized from a
warehouse in Qamishli, the autonomous Kurdish administration’s de-facto
capital.
The shipment was to be transported to neighboring
Iraq, the official said. Its final destination was not clear.
The bust was the latest in a series of operations
targeting captagon shipments from neighboring areas held by rebel or government
forces, the official said.
Captagon was one of the brand names for the
amphetamine-type stimulant fenethylline and is now manufactured illegally,
mostly in Lebanon and Syria.
The pill is consumed by a wide variety of users,
mostly in Gulf countries.
According to a
European Union-funded report by the
Center for Operational Analysis and Research, “captagon exports from Syria
reached a market value of at least $3.46 billion” in 2020.
Seizures have continued to rise and, according to an AFP
count, close to 50 million pills have been seized across the region since the
start of the year.
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