AMMAN: Jordan’s judiciary on Thursday sentenced two men to long prison terms for attempting to smuggle nearly two million captagon pills into the country from Syria, a judicial source told AFP.
The state security court handed a 20-year prison term and a fine of 20,000 Jordanian dinars ($28,000) to one of those convicted — a Syrian — and a 10-year-term, along with a 10,000 dinar fine, to a Jordanian, the source said.
The two men, whose identities have not been disclosed, had attempted to smuggle more than 1.9 million captagon pills from Syria to Jordan in 2021, the source added.
The pills were found by narcotics officers in wood-burning stoves.
The Jordanian army reported in February that an organized ring had attempted to smuggle drugs across the border into the country using drones and with the support of armed groups.
According to organizations that track drug smuggling, much of the production of captagon — an amphetamine that has a big market in the Middle East — takes place in zones controlled by the Syrian government.
Jordanian security forces have tightened border controls in recent years.