SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The Kurdistan authorities on Sunday announced the arrest of several high-profile drug dealers in collaboration with Iraq, who were part of an international gang, according to a statement.
The Region’s Anti-Drug Agency revealed that in early August this year, the security forces (Asayish) and the Kurdistan Counter-Terrorism Service, successfully apprehended three drug dealers in the Duhok governorate.
“Investigations suggest that the suspects are members of an international drug dealing gang,” the Agency said in a statement.
“The suspects’ confession indicated that they are aware of several drug distribution and selling hubs in Iraq, as well as the Kurdistan Region,” the statement added.
The gang was connected to networks of drug selling and trafficking across the country.
Subsequently, the Kurdistan Region authorities formed a joint operation room with Iraq’s Interior Ministry in order to pursue other suspects.
As a result, three more suspects were arrested, and 236 kilograms of Captagon pills with 32 kilograms of Opium were seized as well.
In the meantime, the same operation led to the arrest of six more drug dealers in Iraq’s Nineveh province, where 216 kilograms of pills along with 15 kilograms of other narcotic drugs were seized.
The statement pointed out that the drugs’ main conduit “comes from neighboring countries to Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.”
“They drugs were also prepared to be smuggled to the gulf countries,” according to the statement.
Sharing borders with Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait and other countries, Iraq has served as a major conduit for traffickers of captagon, which is primarily produced in Syria and has its largest market in Gulf Arab states.
The sale and use of drugs in Iraq has soared in recent years.
In June, Iraqi security forces said they had forced down a microlight aircraft near the Kuwaiti border headed to the emirate from Iran with one million captagon pills.
Weeks earlier, Iraqi police announced they had seized more than six million pills of the stimulant in a major drug bust.
Areas in central and southern Iraq bordering Iran have become major narcotic trafficking routes for drugs, including crystal methamphetamine.
The interior ministry’s anti-drug unit in December 2021 named the neighbouring provinces of Basra and Maysan as the “leading southern provinces in terms of trafficking and consumption”.
