Saudi Prince Detained At Beirut Airport For Drug Smuggling

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Prince and four other Saudis detained over seizure of two tons of amphetamines and cocaine at Lebanese capital's airport.

drug smuggling

Lebanese security forces are interrogating a Saudi prince on charges of drug smuggling after they retrieved a huge amount of narcotics from his private plane.

Lebanese TV station Al Mayadeen said that 40 packages of drugs, weighing 2 tons in total, were confiscated.

Prince Abdel Mohsen Bin Walid Bin Abdulaziz and four others were arrested and taken in for questioning by airport security for attempting to smuggle around two tons of Captagon pills and cocaine.

Captagon is an amphetamine-based drug that ISIS have been using to stay alert in battle.

Al Jazeera reports:

Captagon is the brand name for the amphetamine phenethylline, a synthetic stimulant.

Manufacturing of the substance thrives in Lebanon and war-torn Syria, which have become a gateway for the drug to the Middle East and particularly the Gulf.

The UN Office of Drugs and Crime said in a 2014 report that the amphetamine market is on the rise in the Middle East, with seizures mostly in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria accounting for more than 55 percent of amphetamines recovered worldwide.

The security source said the drugs had been packed into cases that were waiting to be loaded onto a private plane that was headed to Saudi Arabia.

Lebanon’s state news agency said the private plane was to head to Riyadh and was carrying 40 suitcases full of Captagon.

The five Saudi citizens were still in the airport and will be questioned by Lebanon’s customs authority, the source added.

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