The Smuggling Of 720 Kg Of Marijuana Resin And 6.5 Million Pills Of "The Poor" To Saudi Arabia Was Thwarted In Lebanon

JAKARTA - Lebanese Minister of Home Affairs (Mendagri) Ahmad Al-Hajjar said his officers dismantled a network that wanted to smuggle 720 kilograms (kg) hashish and 6.5 million pills of illegal stimulant captagon into Saudi Arabia.

Hajjar said Lebanese officials arrested the leadership and a number of other people involved in the drug network.

"This network has ties to foreign parties, to people in Turkey, people in Australia, and is preparing to connect with operators in Jordan," he said on Monday, September 15, quoted by AFP.

Hash is known to be resin from marijuana which was originally used for treatment. While the captagon is a pill that can make addictive similar to amphetamine, it is also called "cocain for the poor".

Lebanon has faced pressure from Gulf countries to eradicate drug production and trafficking, particularly narcotics captagons similar to amphetamine, whose main market is conservative monarchy.

"In this operation, Lebanese officers confiscated 6.5 million captagon pills and 720 kilograms of hashish that is being prepared ... to be sent to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," he said.

Hajjar said the prevention of drug smuggling took place at Beirut Harbor, a transit site before being sent to Saudi Arabia.

He stressed that fighting the drug trade was "one of the main priorities" of the Lebanese nation.

Last week, Hajjar said authorities had seized about eight million captagon pills worth more than 90 million US dollars from a warehouse in northern Lebanon and arrested several suspects.