Lebanese army seizes 64 million captagon pills in one of largest drug busts

Lebanon's military said on Wednesday that it had seized 64 million captagon pills in the country's east in one of the largest operations against the illicit stimulant in the country.

"After monitoring and tracking the movements of drug-dealing gangs in the Bekaa Valley, a patrol from the Intelligence Directorate, supported by an army unit, raided a facility in the town of Boudai, Baalbek, and seized approximately 64 million captagon pills," the Lebanese army said in a statement, calling it "one of the most important" drug busts in the country.

The army also seized "79 barrels of chemicals prepared for drug manufacturing, in addition to a number of machines used to manufacture them".

Lebanon has faced pressure from Gulf states to counter the production and trafficking of drugs, particularly the amphetamine-like narcotic captagon, for which the conservative monarchies are a major market.

The army has shut down many factories in recent months and killed and arrested dozens of individuals. Last month, three of the country's most notorious drug traffickers were killed in a drone strike during a major security operation in Baalbek.

Baalbek is close to Syria, where captagon became the largest export following the eruption of the civil war in 2011 and a key source of illicit funding for former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's regime.

In Lebanon, Assad's ally Hezbollah - heavily weakened from the war with Israel last year - also faced accusations of using the captagon trade to finance itself.

The synthetic drug has flooded the region, with neighbouring countries occasionally announcing captagon seizures and asking Lebanon and Syria to ramp up efforts to combat the trade.