BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities seized record quantities of the potent stimulant captagon last year, at an estimated value of up to $144 million, with the country increasingly a critical drug conduit, a UN report said Monday.
“Iraq has been experiencing a dramatic surge in drug trafficking and consumption for the past five years,” according to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report.
In 2023 alone, authorities “seized a record-high 24 million captagon tablets,” the equivalent of over 4.1 tons, with an estimated “retail value” of between $84 million and $144 million, it said.
“Iraq appears to be at the nexus of regional trafficking routes for both methamphetamine and captagon,” UNODC said, adding that it is “becoming a critical juncture in the complex trafficking dynamics observed in the Near and Middle East region.”
Captagon seizures in Iraq “reportedly tripled between 2022 and 2023, and overall amounts seized in 2023 are 34 times higher than in 2019.”
An amphetamine derived from a once-legal treatment for narcolepsy and attention disorder, captagon today is trafficked through several Middle Eastern countries, with Syria the main country of origin.
Authorities in conflict-scarred Iraq regularly announce large seizures of captagon, much of it moved across the porous 600-kilometer (370-mile) border with war-torn Syria.
According to UNODC, 82 percent of the captagon seized in the region between 2019 and 2023 originated in Syria, followed by neighboring Lebanon, at 17 percent.
Iraq faces an explosion in domestic drug use, with the repeated crises that have gripped the conflict-ridden country of 43 million people driving up usage.
During an anti-drug conference attended by regional officials, Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Al-Sudani called for regional cooperation.
“Coordinating and cooperating to pursue and dismantle drug gangs will serve regional and international security,” he said, adding that “Iraq is open to all cooperation” to fight “cross-border crime.”
“We will support any effort aiming to eliminate drug hubs, manufacturing stations, and cutting off their supply chains.”
UN warns Iraq becoming major regional drug conduit
https://arab.news/6uz2k
UN warns Iraq becoming major regional drug conduit
- “Iraq appears to be at the nexus of regional trafficking routes for both methamphetamine and captagon,” UNODC said
- Authorities in Iraq regularly announce large seizures of captagon, much of it moved across the border with Syria
Two Tunisia columnists handed over three years in prison
- Mourad Zeghidi and Borhen Bsaies have already been in detention for almost two years
- They were due to be released in January 2025 but have remained in custody on charges of money laundering
TUNIS: Two prominent Tunisian columnists were sentenced on Thursday to three and a half years in prison each for money laundering and tax evasion, according to a relative and local media.
The two men, Mourad Zeghidi and Borhen Bsaies, have already been in detention for almost two years for statements considered critical of President Kais Saied’s government, made on radio, television programs and social media.
They were due to be released in January 2025 but have remained in custody on charges of money laundering and tax evasion.
“Three and a half years for Mourad and Borhen,” Zeghidi’s sister, Meriem Zeghidi Adda, wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
Since Saied’s power grab, which granted him sweeping powers on July 25, 2021, local and international NGOs have denounced a regression of rights and freedoms in Tunisia.
Dozens of opposition figures and civil society activists are being prosecuted under a presidential decree officially aimed at combatting “fake news” but subject to a very broad interpretation denounced by human rights defenders.
Others, including opposition leaders, have been sentenced to heavy prison terms in a mega-trial of “conspiracy against state security.”
In 2025, Tunisia fell 11 places in media watchdog Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, dropping from 118th to 129th out of 180 countries.
