Iraqi security forces seize three million Captagon pills

The Iraq-Syria border has emerged as a key smuggling route for the drug

Captagon pills seized by officials at the Al Qaim border crossing between Syria and Iraq. AFP

Iraqi authorities have seized a lorry carrying three million Captagon pills at Al Qaim, a town on the Iraqi-Syrian border.

The area has long been a stronghold of Iran-backed Iraqi militias who also control the town of Albu Kamal on the Syrian side of the border, using the area to store and move weapons.

Syria has emerged as a major production centre for the illegal synthetic drug in recent years, with the abuse of Captagon becoming a growing problem across the region.

Security forces said the pills had been hidden in apple crates loaded on to a refrigerated lorry. A border authority official told AFP on condition of anonymity that the shipment from Syria into Iraq contained Captagon pills produced by several manufacturers.

Security operations have been stepped up in Anbar this year to combat the drugs trade in a province once controlled by ISIS, who were pushed out by Iraqi security forces and local tribes between 2015 and 2016.

Anbar still suffers from high rates of poverty and insecurity, however, and authorities have arrested dozens of people in connection with drug smuggling in the largely desert governorate since January.

Iraqi security forces have intensified narcotics operations in recent months, with several high-profile drug seizures reported.

Sharing borders with Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait and other countries, Iraq has served as a major conduit for traffickers of Captagon.

In June, Iraqi security forces said they had forced down a microlight aircraft near the Kuwaiti border headed to the emirate from Iran with one million Captagon pills.

Weeks earlier, Iraqi police announced they had seized more than six million pills of the stimulant in a major drug bust. Authorities said in that raid, three non-Iraqis from the region were arrested at a warehouse south of Baghdad.

Areas in central and southern Iraq bordering Iran have become major narcotic trafficking routes for drugs, including crystal methamphetamine.

The interior ministry's anti-drug unit in December 2021 named the neighbouring provinces of Basra and Maysan as the “leading southern provinces in terms of trafficking and consumption”.