Syrian Iraqi operation seizes 1.73 million captagon pills

The ministry said in a statement on Sunday, 26 April, on Facebook that a series of targeted operations were carried out in the governorates of Rural Damascus (near Damascus) and Homs (central Syria).

The operations resulted in the seizure of 1.73 million Captagon pills prepared for smuggling to a neighboring country, and the arrest of eight members of the network, including a woman.

According to the Interior Ministry statement, the Anti-Narcotics Department carried out the operations in coordination with the Iraqi side, leading to the dismantling of the network, which had been active in smuggling large shipments of narcotics.

The Syrian Interior Ministry confirmed that the Anti-Narcotics Department is continuing its targeted operations in coordination with regional partners to pursue drug smuggling networks, tightening the necessary measures to prevent the infiltration of these toxins and limiting their spread.

For its part, the Iraqi Interior Ministry confirmed on Sunday evening that a targeted operation had been carried out inside Syrian territory to dismantle an international drug smuggling network.

The General Directorate for Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Affairs, affiliated with the Iraqi Interior Ministry, said the operation was carried out through joint coordination with the Anti-Narcotics Department in the Syrian Arab Republic.

The Iraqi General Directorate for Narcotics said it was able to arrest four suspects and seize 1.73 million narcotic pills.

Joint Cooperation and Previous Cell Dismantling

The operation comes in the context of ongoing security cooperation between Damascus and Baghdad on combating drugs, as the recent period has seen notable coordination between the two sides in more than one operation.

On 8 April, the Syrian Interior Ministry announced at the time the dismantling of drug smuggling networks it described as “international,” through joint security operations with the Iraqi side. The operations resulted in the seizure of about one million Captagon pills, in one of the most prominent publicly announced operations in the recent period.

The Interior Ministry said in a statement that the Anti-Narcotics Department carried out operations in cooperation with Iraq’s General Directorate for Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Affairs. The operations included three targeted security operations against networks involved in trafficking and smuggling narcotics across borders, without specifying the precise locations where the operations were carried out.

Before that, on 22 October 2025, the Syrian Interior Ministry announced that the Anti-Narcotics Department had seized 108 kilograms of hashish and 1.27 million Captagon pills, in direct coordination with Iraq’s General Directorate for Narcotics.

It arrested several internationally wanted suspects within cross-border smuggling networks, through joint field and intelligence coordination between the two sides, according to the ministry’s statement.

In turn, the Iraqi Interior Ministry confirmed that the General Directorate for Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances had carried out a targeted operation in direct coordination with the Syrian Anti-Narcotics Department.

The operation comes as an extension of a series of joint international efforts carried out by the Syrian Anti-Narcotics Department, in cooperation with brotherly countries, within the framework of ongoing security and intelligence coordination to confront this dangerous scourge, according to the two ministries’ statements.

Ongoing Battle Against Captagon

Despite the end of the era of the former regime, whose infrastructure supported the drug trade, the Captagon file remains one of the most prominent security challenges facing Syria and the region.

According to the World Drug Report 2025, issued by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, small smuggling networks still possess huge stockpiles from the period of the former regime and are seeking to move them across borders. This turns the phenomenon into one of the “most prominent security problems across Syrian geography” at this stage.

The report said that despite the current government’s hostility toward the drug trade in Syria, the country remains a center for drug production and distribution. The new administration has pledged to disrupt the supply chain and has demonstrated this by publicly destroying large quantities of seized Captagon.

[Source: Enab Baladi English]