Daily Express

Terror group’s £900million record drug haul is seized

- By News Reporter

A WORLD record 14-ton haul of amphetamin­es, worth around £900million and made by ISIS in Syria has been seized by police.

The massive shipment – 84 million tablets stamped with the “Captagon” logo – was destined for organised crime gangs across Europe.

Officials say that city streets would have been flooded with the party drug and the profits would have been used to fund more terror atrocities.

Italian police said in a statement: “We know that the Islamic State finances its terrorist activities traffickin­g drugs produced in Syria, which has become the leading world producer of amphetamin­es.” .

Drugs were hidden in three containers found in the port of Salerno, just south of Naples.

The investigat­ion and bust were carried out on a decree from the Naples public prosecutor.

The police statement added: “The hypothesis is that during the lockdown, the production and distributi­on of synthetic drugs in Europe has practicall­y stopped and therefore many trafficker­s with different organised crime groups have turned to Syria, where it does not seem to have slowed down.”

The drugs had been packed industrial-sized paper tubes.

Captagon was originally a brand name for a medicinal drug that went out of production.

However amphetamin­es carrying the logo are regularly seized in the Middle East and traced back to the terror organisati­on.

In 2015, US media reported claims by officials that blood-thirsty jihadist fighters were popping pills, which causes a surge of energy and a euphoric high, before going into battle. into

 ??  ?? Record haul...Italian police with the amphetamin­es in Salerno
Record haul...Italian police with the amphetamin­es in Salerno

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