Lebanon foils attempt to smuggle drugs into Saudi Arabia

Dubai: Lebanese security authorities have foiled an attempt to smuggle 250,000 captagon pills, hidden in a shipment of small electric water pumps, into Saudi Arabia, local media said.

According to Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces, three men were arrested on Tuesday in connection with the attempt to smuggle 37.2kg of captagon through Rafiq Hariri airport into the Kingdom.

The arrested include a man without identification papers, a Syrian national and a Lebanese man. They admitted to forming a drug smuggling network headed by the first suspect, who instructed the others to travel to Tripoli, Northern Lebanon, where they received the shipment of electric water pumps, smuggled from Syria. The captagon pills were stuffed inside the pumps.

In April, Saudi Arabia banned the import of Lebanese fruits and vegetables after seizing 5.3 million captagon pills and 2.4 million amphetamine pills that were hidden in a shipment of pomegranates coming from Lebanon.