VIDEO: Saudi Arabia Finds Nearly 47 Million Amphetamine Pills Hidden in Flour

Officials in Saudi Arabia this week seized approximately 47 million amphetamine pills found hidden inside flour bags.

It was described as one of the largest smuggling attempts of the drug into the kingdom at one time, according to the General Directorate of Narcotics Control (GDNC), Alarabiya News reported Wednesday.

“Eight residents invovled in the smuggling operation were arrested, and 46,916,480 million pills of amphetamine hidden in a shipment of flour bags were seized,” agency spokesman Major Mohammed al-Nujaidi explained in a statement.

The shipment reportedly arrived at the Riyadh Dry Port before being taken to a warehouse where officials raided the building. Six Syrian individuals along with two Pakistani individuals were taken into custody.

Al-Nujaidi also said the amount of pills was the “biggest of its kind in a single smuggling operation.”

A video showed someone cutting open a bag of flour where the pills were stashed:

Amphetamines were described as stimulant drugs that increased a person’s central nervous system, according to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).

Meanwhile, shipments of Captagon and amphetamine pills were seized on a regular basis and originated mostly from Syria and Lebanon, the Alarabiya News report said.

In July 2020, Italian officials seized 14 tons of Captagon headed for Europe from Syria, according to Breitbart News.

“Italian officials reportedly believe Islamic State terrorists had produced the drug and introduced it to the market,” the article continued:

At the height of the Islamic State’s power in Syria and Iraq in the mid-2010s, when the group had established a “caliphate” including some of those countries’ biggest cities, captagon grew to develop a reputation for being a “jihad” drug, used to limit the inhibition of jihadis and allow them to stay awake for extended periods of time to commit human rights atrocities.

Italian authorities found the drugs in Salerno and the haul’s reported estimated worth was approximately $1 billion, the outlet said, adding, “It is believed to be the biggest seizure of amphetamines in history.”

Saudi officials arrested a Sudanese man in July 2017 for allegedly trying to smuggle over half a million drug tablets into the kingdom while riding a camel, the Economist reported.

“The one the Sudanese man was allegedly trafficking, known as Captagon, is the Arabian peninsula’s most popular illegal drug,” the article said, noting the market for drugs was “huge.”