DAMASCUS, May 19, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Syrian authorities on Monday announced that they had thwarted an attempt to smuggle out four million tablets of captagon, an amphetamine-like narcotic that has flooded the region.

The interior ministry said in a statement that authorities seized "over four million captagon tablets that were tightly hidden inside industrial equipment designed for manufacturing flour used for human consumption".

It said they had acted on "accurate information received from our sources about a shipment of drugs hidden inside industrial equipment prepared for smuggling outside the country".

The tablets were seized in the key port city of Latakia -- the coastal heartland of deposed president Bashar al-Assad's Alawite minority.

Under Assad's rule, captagon became Syria's largest export during the civil war that erupted in 2011 and a key source of illicit funding for his government.

Since Assad's ouster last December, the new Islamist authorities have discovered millions of captagon pills in warehouses and on military bases.

The interior ministry said those involved in the latest operation have been "arrested, the equipment containing the drugs has been seized, and the arrested individuals have been referred for investigation based on a decision issued by the public prosecution".

Last week, Syrian authorities announced the seizure of around nine million captagon tablets that were headed for Turkey, after a month-long operation.

Drug smuggling has persisted in Syria despite the new rulers' efforts, with neighbouring countries occasionally seizing large quantities of captagon.

Iraqi security forces seized more than a tonne of captagon smuggled from Syria via Turkey in March, and Jordan thwarted a smuggling attempt from Syria in April, confiscating "hundreds of thousands" of captagon tablets.