LONDON: The Syrian Arab Republic’s Anti-Narcotics Department, in collaboration with Iraq’s General Directorate for Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances, thwarted an attempt to smuggle 500,000 captagon pills on Sunday.
Authorities arrested two suspects while they were transporting the shipment in Damascus, intended for trafficking out of the country, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency.
The Syrian Interior Ministry said the operation was part of a broader national strategy to combat drug trafficking and enhance cross-border cooperation in addressing organized crime, according to SANA.
Early in April, Syrian and Iraqi anti-narcotics authorities seized around 1 million captagon pills.
Since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, anti-narcotics authorities in Syria and Iraq have increasingly been conducting joint operations to crack down on cross-border criminal networks.
Under the former president, Bashar Assad, Syria became a hub for the production and distribution of illegal drugs, while the government largely ignored the concerns of neighboring countries about the negative effects this was having on the region.
