Iraqi security seizes 236 kilograms of Captagon drug pills
Captagon drug pills. Photo: AFP
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – Two weeks after eliminating the first attempt to manufacture Captagon drug pills in Iraq, security officers arrested a drug trafficker in the northern part of the country, the Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.
According to the statement issued on Thursday by the Supreme Judicial Council’s press office, an anti-narcotics unit carried out a security operation in the northern Iraqi governorate of Duhok in cooperation with Erbil’s anti-narcotics directorate, where a dangerous drug dealer was arrested.
The statement illustrated that more than 236 kilograms of Captagon pills and nearly 36 kilograms of opium were caught in the possession of the suspect.
The security operation in northern Iraq comes two weeks after Iraqi security forces discovered a Captagon production factory in Muthanna governorate in southern Iraq for the first time in the country.
The Iraqi Ministry of Interior mentioned in a statement that the factory is prepared to manufacture the narcotic Captagon pills, with raw materials estimated at more than 27 kilograms.
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.