Italian police seize €1bn amphetamine haul from Syria

Police in Italy have claimed the biggest seizure of amphetamines in the world, intercepted en route from Syria to European markets where synthetic drug production may have taken an unexpected hit from lockdown.

More than 84m Captagon tablets, weighing 14 tonnes and with a value of more than €1bn (£900m), were hidden in large paper and steel cylinders and transported to the port of Salerno, southern Italy, where they were seized by the police.

“Fourteen tons of amphetamine could not have been destined for Italy alone,” said Col Domenico Napolitano, the commander of the Guardia di Finanza of Naples, who led the operation.

“We believe that, during the Covid-19 lockdown, the production and distribution of synthetic drugs in Europe practically ground to a halt and therefore many traffickers have turned to Syria, where production does not seem to have slowed down during the pandemic,” he said.

Captagon is known by some as the “Isis drug” after investigations revealed the amphetamine was both used by Islamic State’s fighters to keep them on their feet during battles and by the group to sell for profit.

“The amphetamine pills we seized had a symbol on them,” said Napolitano. “Two half-moons – the same symbols found on the Captagon seized in the Isis hideouts in the Middle East. It is the same symbol found on the tablets the terrorists consumed before the attack on the Bataclan in Paris in 2015.

“We have been following this investigation for some time and we believe that the drugs seized in Salerno may have been produced by men linked to Daesh [Isis] in order to finance the jihad.”

Captagon, the trademark name for the synthetic stimulant fenethylline, was first produced in the 1960s to treat hyperactivity, narcolepsy and depression, but was banned in most countries by the 1980s as it was deemed too addictive.

It remains hugely popular in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia alone seizes 55m tablets a year, perhaps 10% of the total thought to be smuggled into the kingdom.

The drug is cheap and simple to produce, using ingredients that are easy and often legal to obtain, yet sells for up to £16 a tablet.

Police believe the Salerno shipment was to be received by the mafia. “It is clear the hand of the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra, is behind drug trafficking of such proportions,” Napolitano said. “A billion-euro drug load cannot arrive in a port without the knowledge of the mafia.”