Syria foils 25 million Captagon pill bust in largest anti-drug op to date

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Syrian authorities have foiled an attempt to smuggle 25 million captagon pills out of the country, Damascus’ interior ministry said on Wednesday, hailing the operation as “an exceptional security achievement” and the largest recorded “domestically and internationally.”

In a statement on X, the ministry said “an exceptional security achievement - the largest domestically and internationally - was recorded by [its affiliated] Anti-Narcotics Department after weeks of monitoring,” resulting in the “foiling of a major smuggling attempt involving 25 million captagon pills, meticulously concealed inside ceramic containers intended for export shipping.”

All members of the network involved in the attempted smuggling were arrested, the ministry said, adding that “all logistical means and equipment used in production and concealment” were also seized and added as evidence in the case file in preparation for referral of the perpetrators to the judicial authorities.

“This qualitative operation reflects the high efficiency and readiness of the Anti-Narcotics Department personnel in monitoring and foiling cross-border criminal schemes and cutting off the sources of this dangerous scourge, in order to safeguard internal stability and protect communities,” the ministry affirmed.

Syria was long considered a major hub for the production and trafficking of Captagon under the rule of toppled Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose brother Maher is widely believed to have overseen the operations, using them for financial gain and political leverage.

According to a June 2023 study by the Canada-based non-profit Observatory of Political and Economic Networks (OPEN), the illicit captagon trade generated an estimated average net profit of $2.4 billion annually for the Assad regime between 2020 and 2022. 

Since Assad’s December 2024 ouster, the new Syrian leadership has stepped up efforts to counter drug manufacturers and smugglers and has increased cooperation with regional countries, particularly Iraq, in its counter-narcotics efforts. 

In late April and mid-March, Syria announced that joint security operations with Iraq successfully foiled attempts to smuggle 500,000 and 400,000 captagon pills, respectively.

For their part, Iraqi authorities reported in early May that they had confiscated more than 1.5 tons of narcotics and secured nearly 2,500 convictions in drug-related cases during the first five months of 2026, as Baghdad intensifies efforts to curb trafficking and drug abuse.

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