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Iraq seizes more than 6 million captagon pills in massive drug bust

Security forces said they broke up a trafficking ring with suspected international ties

Published: Sun 1 May 2022, 8:37 AM

Updated: Sun 1 May 2022, 8:42 AM

  • By
  • AFP

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Iraqi security forces said Saturday they had broken up a drug trafficking ring and seized more than six million pills of the amphetamine-type stimulant captagon, making several arrests.

Iraqi forces seized “around 6.2 million pills” from a warehouse in the southwest of the capital, the national security agency said in a statement, adding that the drugs were set for distribution “in areas of Baghdad and other provinces”.

Three Iraqis and four suspects from other Arab countries were arrested in connection with the trafficking network, it added.

The statement said security forces broke up a second drug ring after an Arab national was arrested “in possession of six kilos (13 pounds) of hashish”, while two accomplices were also detained.

All 10 accused “admitted to links with international drug trafficking networks”, it said.

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Drug trafficking convictions can be punishable by the death penalty in Iraq.

In the first three months of this year, Iraqi security forces detained 18 suspected drug traffickers in the largely desert province of Anbar, which shares a long border with Syria, according to an official source.

More than three million captagon pills were seized in the same period.

Captagon was the trade name of a drug initially patented in Germany in the early 1960s that contained an amphetamine-type stimulant called fenethylline used to treat attention deficit and narcolepsy among other conditions.

Captagon is now a brand name, with its trademark logo sporting two interlocked “Cs”, or crescents, embossed on each tablet, for a drug that often contains little or no fenethylline and is close to what is known in other countries as “speed”.



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