More than 400,000 Captagon pills were captured in an operation carried out by Iraqi and Syrian forces.
The drug bust was launched in Syria's Homs province late on Wednesday and resulted in the arrest of two suspects. The seized pills weighed about 65kg.
Iraq's Interior Ministry said it sent a special unit to Syria to carry out the raid in co-ordination with Syrian drugs authorities. The target was an "international trafficking network" preparing the pills for smuggling across the border into Iraq, the ministry added.
Baghdad and Damascus have stepped up efforts to combat cross-border crime since December 2024, when Syria's former president Bashar Al Assad was overthrown.
In an operation on February 10, 200,000 Captagon pills were seized. In that case, Iraq said it acted on "precise intelligence and continuous tracking" to bring down a five-member drug gang planning to smuggle Captagon into Iraq. In December, Iraqi and Syrian authorities announced the seizure of 57kg of illegal drugs in Syria.
The UN has said western Iraq, near Anbar province and Al Qaim crossing with Syria, was a vital transit route for Captagon. Pills are taken into Iraqi cities and then spread to the Gulf and other regions, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said.
Iraq's Captagon seizures have increased in recent years. The drug is an addictive amphetamine trafficked to countries across the Middle East. Millions of pills were produced in Syria under the Assad regime, with the country accounting for about 80 per cent of global production, the New Lines Institute think tank said.
Despite many tonnes of the drug being confiscated, the trade has fuelled addiction in countries including Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
