84 million tablets of captagon forming a loot of 14 tonnes of amphetamine : this is the input record that was announced Wednesday the 1st of July the Italian police. This decision has been carried out in the port of Salerme, south of Naples. The goods, manufactured by the terrorist organization islamic State in Syria, have a market value of about one billion euros on the market. The Italian police refers to " the largest seizure of amphetamines at a global level ".
"Drug jihad"
According to an investigation headed by the public prosecutor of Naples, the drug was contained in three suspect containers, containing cylinders of paper for industrial use and metal wheels. These rolls of paper in multilayer, approximately 2 meters high and a diameter of 1.40 m (probably made in Germany), in order to allow everyone to conceal approximately 350 kg of tablets placed in the interior layers without being able to be detected by a scanner. The huge metal wheels and cut by the experts were also filled with pills.
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The tablets were stamped with the symbol "captagon," a drug classified as a narcotic, also known under the name "drug jihad," explain the investigators. "We know that the islamic State is funding its own terrorist activities, especially the trafficking of synthetic drug produced in Syria, which, for this reason, in recent years has become the world's largest producer of amphetamines," says the press release from the police.
another seizure of amphetamines
two weeks ago, the same unit of investigation of Naples specialized in organized crime, had intercepted a container of counterfeit clothes, hiding 2 800 kg of hashish and 190 kg of amphetamine in the form of more than one million pills stamped " captagon ". The investigators believe that a "consortium" of criminal groups is to manoeuvre, because the 85 million tablets we can satisfy a market of european dimensions. According to one hypothesis, it could be a "cartel" of clans of the Camorra (mafia of naples).
The containment due to the epidemic of the coronavirus has no doubt blocked the production and distribution of synthetic drugs in Europe. Therefore, many traffickers would have turned to Syria for re-supply. The Italian police stressed that the "captagon", sold in the Middle East, " is very prevalent among the combatants to inhibit the fear and the pain." Originally produced in Lebanon and broadcast in saudi Arabia in the 1990s, this drug was found in the hideout of terrorists as those responsible for the attacks in paris 2015 including in the room of concerts at the Bataclan.
