Italy Thwarts $1 Bln Drug Smuggling by Hezbollah

The Italian authorities succeeded in uncovering a shipment of amphetamine drugs, which the Lebanese Hezbollah had tried to smuggle.

According to the investigation supervised by the Naples City Prosecutor, the banned Lebanese group managed to smuggle the pills, which approached 84 million, and placed them in 3 suspicious containers, including rolls of papers intended for industrial use and iron wheels.

The investigators consider that the shipment, which was confiscated in the port of Salerno, is sufficient to flood the entire European market, and it was also likely that it was planned that a number of criminal groups would participate in its promotion and distribution, across the old continent.

Captagon, which is sold in the Middle East, is popular with the militias to reduce the feeling of fear and pain, and to help them fight for long periods.

A few months ago, the Italian authorities confiscated a record quantity of amphetamine, or what is known as the Captagon pill, amounting to 14 tons, with an estimated value of about one billion dollars.

At first, the authorities thought that ISIS is behind the operation, but later on, indepth investigations unfold that the Lebanese group of Hezbollah is behind the whole matter.

Hours ago, a source in the Guardia di Finanza, the Italian finance police, in Salerno has told Arab News that 15 tons of Captagon amphetamine seized in July in Naples “came from Syria and could be linked to Lebanese group Hezbollah, even though we are still investigating the case.”

On July 1, the Guardia di Finanza claimed the biggest seizure of amphetamines in the world as they intercepted more than 84 million Captagon tablets — weighing 14 tons and with a value of more than €1 billion ($1.2 billion) — from Syria to European markets, where synthetic drug production may have taken an unexpected hit from the COVID-19 lockdown.