Lebanese Interior Minister Ahmad al-Hajjar said Monday that authorities dismantled a network that was preparing to smuggle hashish and the illicit stimulant captagon to Saudi Arabia.
Lebanon has faced pressure from Gulf states to counter the production and trafficking of drugs, particularly the amphetamine-like narcotic captagon, for which the conservative monarchies are a major market.
Hajjar said authorities dismantled the network, which mainly sought to smuggle captagon and hashish, and arrested its head and a number of other people.
“This network had foreign links, with people in Turkey, people in Australia” and was preparing to connect with operatives in Jordan, he said.
Lebanese authorities “seized 6.5 million captagon pills and 720 kilograms (1,500 pounds) of hashish which were being prepared… for shipment towards the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”, Hajjar said.
The operation was thwarted before it reached Beirut port for shipment, he said, adding that fighting the drug trade “is one of the main priorities” of the Lebanese state.
Last week, Hajjar said authorities had seized some eight million captagon pills worth more than $90 million from a warehouse in northern Lebanon and arrested several suspects.
Captagon became neighbouring Syria’s largest export following the eruption of the civil war in 2011, and a key source of illicit funding for former president Bashar al-Assad’s government.
In Lebanon, Assad’s ally Hezbollah faced accusations of using the captagon trade for financing.
The drug has flooded the region, with neighbouring countries occasionally announcing captagon seizures and asking Lebanon and Syria to ramp up efforts to combat the trade.
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© Agence France-Presse
