Italian police announced Wednesday the record seizure of 14 tonnes of amphetamines, in the form of 84 million captagon tablets produced in Syria by the Islamic State group (Daesh).
According to the Italian police, this is "the largest seizure of amphetamines worldwide". Built in the port of Salerno (south of Naples), it has a market value of one billion euros.
The drug was in three suspicious containers, sheltering cylinders of paper for industrial use and machines, reveals the investigation overseen by the parquet floor of Naples.
These cylinders of multi-layer paper, about 2 meters high and with a diameter of 1.40 meters (probably made in Germany), each allowed to hide about 350 kg of tablets placed in the inner layers without being able to be detected by a scanner.
Captagon, "the jihad drug"
The tablets were stamped with the symbol "captagon," a drug classified as a narcotic, also known as "jihad drug," the investigators said.
"We know that the Islamic State finances its own terrorist activities mainly by trafficking in synthetic drugs produced in Syria, which for this reason has become in recent years the world's largest producer of amphetamines," said the police statement. Plunged into the civil war since 2011, Syria has become a major exporter and consumer of the captagon.
Two weeks ago, the same Naples organized crime investigation unit intercepted a container of counterfeit clothing, concealing 2,800 kg of hashish and 190 kg of amphetamines in the form of more than a million pills also marked "captagon".
Containment blocked production in Europe
Investigators believe that a "consortium" of criminal groups are at work, because the 85 million tablets can satisfy a European market. According to one hypothesis, it could be a "cartel" of Camorra clans (Neapolitan mafia).
Newsletter - Essential news
Every morning, the news seen by Le ParisienI'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to allow you to receive our news and commercial offers. Find out more
Containment due to the coronavirus epidemic has undoubtedly blocked the production and distribution of synthetic drugs in Europe. Since then, many traffickers have turned to Syria for restocking.
Italian police stress that the captagon, sold throughout the Middle East, "is very common among fighters to inhibit fear and pain". Originally produced in Lebanon and distributed in Saudi Arabia in the 90s, this drug was found in the hideouts of terrorists, like those responsible for the Paris attacks of 2015, notably in the concert hall of Bataclan.
A year ago, the Greek authorities had seized for more than half a billion euros of Captagon tablets, on board three containers from Syria. 33 million cachets weighing a total of 5.25 tonnes had been discovered. At the end of 2017, in Italy, millions of lozenges of a synthetic drug, this time tramadol, worth around 50 million euros had been seized in the context of trafficking organized by Daesh.
