AMMAN: Jordanian officials said on Wednesday the country had foiled two plots to smuggle millions of captagon pills through a border post near Saudi Arabia, in the biggest seizure in years of drugs smuggled by Iran-linked networks operating in southern Syria.

Officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration said they “foiled the smuggling of a huge quantity of drugs that was on its way to a neighboring country, and arrested members of two gangs linked to regional drug smuggling networks,” according to a report by ammonnews. 

The Public Security Directorate that about 9.5 million narcotic pills and 143 kg of narcotic hashish were found while thwarting two smuggling operations. It also said they overthrow the members of the two gangs.

War-ravaged Syria has become the region’s main site for the mass production of the addictive, amphetamine-type stimulant known as captagon, with Jordan a key transit route to Gulf states, Western anti-narcotics officials say.

Jordanian officials, like their Western allies, say that Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group and pro-Iranian militias who control much of southern Syria are behind a surge in the multi-billion-dollar drugs and weapons trade. Iran and Hezbollah deny the allegations.

According to research published in the International Addiction Review Journal, it is assumed that users pay in the range of $10-$25 a pill.