LONDON: Syrian authorities on Wednesday arrested two drug traffickers and seized 186,000 captagon pills during an operation in the Afrin area of Aleppo province in the north of the country.
The Drug Enforcement Department said that authorities seized the pills from 186 bags with a combined weight of 32 kg, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency.
The DED branch in Aleppo also arrested three people last Friday for drug trafficking in the city and seized about 160,000 captagon pills.
The illegal trade in captagon, a synthetic, amphetamine-like drug, has a significant negative impact on public health and security in the Middle East, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
Authorities across the Arab region have seized at least 177 million captagon tablets since late 2024. According to UNODC’s World Drug Report 2026, captagon remains a drug of major concern in the Middle East, despite significant seizures by Syrian and Lebanese authorities since the fall of the Bashar Assad regime in 2024.
