Saudi prince caught ‘with two tons of drugs’ at Lebanese airport

Drug smuggling in the airport. (Xinhua/Rachen Sageamsak)

A Lebanese official says Beirut airport authorities have foiled one of the country’s largest drug smuggling attempts, seizing two tonnes of the amphetamine fenethylline (Captagon) before they were loaded on to the private plane of a Saudi prince.

Saudi prince Abdel Mohsen Bin Walid Bin Abdulaziz and four others were detained by airport security while allegedly “attempting to smuggle about two tons of Captagon pills and some cocaine,” a security source told AFP.

“The smuggling operation is the largest one that has been foiled through the Beirut International Airport,” the source said. The security source added that the drugs had been packed into cases that were waiting to be loaded onto a private plane that was headed to Saudi Arabia. According to security sources, the five Saudi citizens were still in the airport and would be questioned by Lebanon’s customs authority.

A similar attempt happened in April 2014, as security forces foiled an attempt to smuggle 15 million capsules of Captagon hidden in shipping containers full of corn from Beirut’s port.

Captagon pills, which typically contain amphetamine and caffeine, are consumed widely in the Middle East and has reportedly been widely used by fighters in Syria, as AFP reports.

Captagon, originally the trade name for the synthetic stimulant fenetylline, was first produced in the 1960s to treat hyperactivity, narcolepsy and depression. However, it was banned in most countries by the 1980s because of it was too addictive, according to a BBC report.