The Orient By Day – Saudi authorities have seized more than 12.7 million amphetamine pills hidden in a shipment of fruit arriving at the western port of Jeddah, the official SPA news agency reported on Tuesday. Two Egyptians, a Yemeni and a Syrian were arrested, she said.
The SPA agency did not specify the origin of the cargo of fruit – pomegranates – nor the date of its seizure. The Gulf Kingdom is considered the main user of captagon, a drug from the amphetamine family.
The SPA agency did not say whether the drugs seized were captagon, which is wreaking havoc in Saudi Arabia and produced in Syria. Captagon, once associated with Islamic State jihadists, has spawned an illegal industry worth more than $10 billion supporting the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, according to an AFP investigation in November.
The European Union on Monday sanctioned cousins of the Syrian president and several of his relatives, accused of captagon trafficking. Two of them had already been sanctioned for the same reasons by the United States and Great Britain.
Riyadh severed ties with Damascus in 2012, but the two countries have recently moved closer together, in a context of regional detente.
AFP
Source : The Orient By Day (Lebanon)
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2023-04-25 18:41:58
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