Lebanon seizes 2.2 million Captagon pills and two tonnes of cannabis hidden on lorry

Lebanese security forces are engaged in a sustained campaign against drug smuggling

The drug bust is the latest in a series of operations to tackle smuggling in Lebanon.

Lebanese authorities have intercepted more than two million Captagon pills and two tonnes of cannabis before they left Beirut port.

The country’s Internal Security Forces said the drugs were hidden on board a Mercedes Actros lorry carrying three generators. It did not say to where the shipment was being sent.

The ISF said the cannabis was hidden in the bed of the lorry alongside about 2.2 million Captagon pills.

The compartment was welded shut, it said.

Two Lebanese and one Syrian were arrested in connection with the shipment, and authorities said they were pursuing a fourth suspect.

The arrests came as a result of simultaneous raids in the Beqaa valley town of Baalbek, and the town of Sharon, in Aley, the ISF said. The raids took place on July 30, but only came to light on Saturday.

There has been a wave of Captagon busts in Lebanon in recent months, as authorities battle a major international industry.

In April, Saudi customs officials seized more than 5.3 million pills of the amphetamine hidden inside a shipment of pomegranates that arrived in Jeddah port from Lebanon.

That bust promoted the kingdom to ban all fruit and vegetable imports transiting, or originating from, Lebanon, crippling the country’s agricultural sector. The ban remains in place to this day.

At the time, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Lebanon, Walid Al Bukhari, said the ban was the result of Riyadh seizing more than 600 million pills from Lebanon in the past six years.

“The quantities that were thwarted are enough to drown the entire Arab world, not just Saudi Arabia, in narcotics and psychotropic substances,” Mr Al Bukhari said at the time.

The lucrative trade of the drug has spawned a creative industry in smuggling.

Recent shipments have been discovered hidden in everything from diesel generators to the hollowed-out lids of jars of tomato paste.