SAUDI AUTHORITIES SEIZE 16.9 MILLION NARCOTIC PILLS IN FIVE DAYS

Tue 02 May 2023:

During a five-day campaign, Saudi authorities seized 16.9 million narcotic amphetamine and Captagon pills, Saudi media reported on Sunday.

The authorities conducted the campaign between 25 April and 29 April – immediately after the Eid Al Fitr holiday – in various regions and governorates across the Kingdom.

According to the Saudi Gazette, the raids led to the seizure of about 16.9 million narcotic amphetamine and Captagon tablets from 17 regions and governorates, at a rate of more than 3.3 million narcotic tablets per day.

On the first day of the campaign, the security authorities foiled an attempt to smuggle about 13 million narcotic amphetamine tablets through Jeddah Islamic Port.

During the campaign, the Saudi authorities detained 71 suspects involved in the smuggling of the banned tablets.

The authorities said that the people involved in the smuggling of the banned tablets will be punished according to the Sharia Law.

Captagon is one of several brand names for fenethylline hydrochloride, a drug compound belonging to the family of amphetamines, stimulants of the central nervous system. In the 1960s the drug was prescribed to treat narcolepsy and depression but by the 1980s the medical community determined that Captagon’s addictive properties outweighed clinical benefits and it was banned. However, Captagon is a popular narcotic in the Arabian Peninsula and in war-torn Syria.

Syria became a major amphetamines exporter and consumer as the trauma of its civil war fueled demand and the breakdown in law and order created opportunities for producers.