Drugs hidden in fruit halts trade
A row has broken out between Lebanon and Saudi Arabia over a haul of millions of amphetamine pills smuggled in a shipment of pomegranates.
Lebanon appealed to Saudi Arabia this week to lift a ban on imports of fruit and vegetables, which have become an important source of hard currency amid a deep financial crisis.
Riyadh imposed the ban after drugs were repeatedly found hidden inside food shipments. Last Friday, it said it had discovered a stash of 5.3 million Captagon pills inside boxes of pomegranates that arrived at Jeddah port.
Captagon is the brand name of an amphetamine that has become wildly popular in the Middle East in the past 10 years, used as a stimulant by fighters on all sides in the Syrian civil war.
The Lebanese government is appealing against the ban, saying intelligence work revealed that the shipment came from Syria but had been relabelled.
Mohammed Fahmi, Lebanon’s caretaker interior minister, promised to crack down on smuggling and told Saudi television that four suspects in the latest case had been identified.
But the export restrictions imposed by Riyadh are a blow to Lebanon, which is being squeezed on all sides.
Its currency has collapsed, with the central bank losing control to the extent that there are three exchange rates, depending on the nature of the transaction. It is also running out of reserves to pay for imports and subsidies on food and fuel.
Some of Lebanon’s banks and politicians have had US sanctions imposed for their ties either to the Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah or to claims of corruption, placing further strain on the financial system.
The British military has provided aid to the Lebanese army to bolster anti-smuggling operations on the Syrian border. But Hassan Diab, the Lebanese prime minister, said countries in the Gulf ‘‘know well that a ban on Lebanese produce will not stop drug smuggling’’. –