ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi General Directorate for Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Affairs and the United Arab Emirates dismantled a cross-border drug trafficking network on Friday, seizing 200,000 Captagon pills and arresting the suspects in a joint operation.
“In a new security blow to cross-border drug trafficking networks … in coordination and cooperation with the National Anti-Narcotics Agency in the sisterly United Arab Emirates, successfully seized 200,000 narcotic Captagon pills and arrested the individuals involved in this case in the UAE,” the directorate said in a statement.
It also added that the operation reflects high-level international security and intelligence coordination to “pursue transnational drug trafficking networks, restrict their movements, and sever their supply routes before reaching their destinations.”
The joint operation comes as Iraq has intensified its anti-narcotics campaign this year.
Last month, Iraqi and Kuwaiti anti-drug authorities seized 700,000 Captagon pills and arrested two people in a joint operation in Kuwait's Kabd area.
A 2024 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) identified Iraq as a "conduit" for drug smuggling, serving both as a destination and transit route for narcotics circulating between Southwest Asia, the Arabian Peninsula and Europe.
To counter rising domestic consumption and a surge in Captagon from neighboring countries, anti-drug operations have scaled up internationally, with Iraqi security bodies establishing 36 liaison channels with foreign counterparts.
The Friday report affirmed that “confronting the drug scourge is no longer merely a local issue, but a security battle requiring a comprehensive international partnership that transcends borders,” noting that information exchange and agency coordination remain critical to tracking smuggling networks, disrupting their plots, and drying up smuggling sources.
The Directorate thwarted another international smuggling operation on Wednesday, when an operation “resulted in the arrest of two dealers caught in the act, along with the seizure of 600,000 Captagon pills weighing approximately 105 kilograms,” the directorate stated, adding that Anbar and Diyala detachments carried out the Khanaqin district mission to stop the drugs from reaching an unnamed neighboring country.
In late August, the Iraqi Interior Ministry reported that 4,644 people had been convicted in drug-related cases since the beginning of the year, while authorities dismantled 304 domestic and 54 international trafficking networks and engaged in 32 armed confrontations with suspected traffickers.
According to official figures, the Iraqi judiciary has handed down around 300 death sentences against major drug traffickers and network leaders, and 1,147 life imprisonment sentences - 20 years under Iraqi law - between late 2022 and late 2025. Those severe penalties accounted for the majority of the 2,318 total sentences issued in drug cases during that period.
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