80 kilograms of Captagon pills seized in Iraq
Captagon drug pills. Photo: AFP
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – As part of a government crackdown on drug smuggling, the Iraqi Ministry of Interior announced on Wednesday that it had found 80 kilograms of Captagon pills and detained four suspects in the western Iraqi governorate of Anbar.
The spokesperson of the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, Miqdad Miri, said in a statement that the General Directorate of Narcotics Control seized 80 kilograms of Captagon in Anbar, the Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.
The statement also explained that four dangerous suspects were taken into custody.
Despite remarkable efforts implemented by the Iraqi government to prevent drug dealing, the number of drug addicts and traffickers in the country has been alarmingly rising in recent years.
The interior ministries of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Jordan said last week that they will form a cooperative communications unit to fight drug trafficking in the region.
Iraqi security forces discovered last July a Captagon production factory in Muthanna governorate in southern Iraq for the first time in the country.
Drug trafficking has become a profitable business in Iraq, with experts estimating its total value at more than $10 billion.
Reports mentioned that Iraq has long been a transit country for Captagon, the amphetamine-like stimulant plaguing the Middle East, but officials say it has also become a consumer market for the drug.
The drug has never been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It was declared a controlled substance in 1981 after the medical community determined that the drug’s addictive properties outweighed its clinical benefits.
Captagon had been outlawed in almost every country by 1986, but illegal production of the drug continued.