Syrian law enforcement officers seized a large batch of captagon on the border with Jordan.
The operation was carried out in the southern Al-Suwayda governorate, which lies on one of the main drug traffic routes to Jordan from Syria.
The southern Syrian regions are k
On December 11, Syrian and Lebanese authorities seized two large drugs shipments which were destined to Saudi Arabia.
On December 7, the security forces detained another large batch of drugs in Daraa governorate. It was reportedly prepared for sale in Syria. A truck with captagon was confiscated and handed over to specialized authorities, the smugglers were detained.
Earlier, on November 18, Jordan’s special services arrested a shipment of four million pills of drugs, which smugglers disguised as chocolate and tried to take to Jordan from Syria through the Nasib-Jaber border crossing.
While drug traffickers in Syria and Lebanon are not known to use violence, recently clashes related to the illegal trade were reported on the border between the two countries as well as in Syria’s southern region.
The border area between Syria and Lebanon is known to be the hub for Captagon production in the Middle East. The eastern Syrian border is the main smuggling route to Lebanon, from where it is transferred to different countries like Turkey, as well as European states, by sea. Meanwhile the border with Jordan ais used for the further transfer around the region.
Syria is known to be one of the main hubs of manufacturing of synthetic drugs. Captagon, scientifically known as Fenethylline, is a codrug of amphetamine and theophylline. The drug is widely used in the Middle East, especially in the Arabian Peninsula. Saudi Arabia remains one of the largest, if not the largest, consumer of Captagon tablets produced illegally in Syria and Lebanon.
The illegal production and trade of the drug grew significantly in the past few years as a direct result of the bad economic situation and instability in Syria and the neighboring Lebanon. Taking into account the social and economic crisis in both countries, the problem of drug smuggling is likely to expand in the near future.