The Lebanese Army has seized a large quantity of Captagon pills and dismantled a laboratory used to produce the drugs in a raid near the border with Syria, it said.
The production plant was found in Harf Al Samaka in the Hermel area, where last month the army intercepted a vehicle loaded with the equipment and raw materials needed to make Captagon.
The often porous, demarcated Syria-Lebanon border has long been the site of rampant smuggling of people, weapons and drugs.
Captagon was state-produced on a mass scale in Syria during the recent years of the Bashar Al Assad regime, providing a vital income source to help prop up the government during the prolonged civil war.
The drug was often smuggled into Lebanon through border areas where Hezbollah – the Lebanese armed group and political party that supported the Assad regime – held sway.
Mr Al Assad was overthrown in a rebel offensive in December. Syria's new rulers have sought to eliminate production networks and publicly destroyed seizures of vast amounts of the drug.
Lebanon often seizes of vast amounts of Captagon and other drugs. In 2023, an estimated 10 million Captagon pills meant to be smuggled to Senegal then on to Saudi Arabia were intercepted.
In April 2021, Riyadh suspended fruit and vegetable imports from Lebanon after it said shipments were being used as cover for drug smuggling.
It came amid a deterioration of relations between Lebanon and Gulf countries, and a perceived rise in Hezbollah and Iran's influence over Lebanese affairs.
With a new Lebanese government and Hezbollah severely weakened, there have been signs of closer ties developing between Lebanon and Gulf countries.
At the weekend, the UAE announced it was lifting a ban on its citizens travelling to Lebanon – days after Lebanese President Joseph Aoun visited the capital Abu Dhabi.
