RIYADH, Apr 14 (Agencies) : Saudi Arabian police have arrested six people and seized illegal drugs worth SR1 billion ($267 million) that were being smuggled into the country from neighboring Bahrain, the Interior Ministry said on Sunday.
Spokesman Major General Mansour Turki said five Saudi citizens and one Bahraini had been detained in the operation after police uncovered 22.6 million amphetamine pills hidden inside coils of barbed wire and rolls of plastic.
An investigation into the seizure of the drugs turned up a connection to an international drug smuggling ring led by a Syrian national, Turki told the Saudi Press Agency.
The Customs Department officers in Al-Haditha checkpoint also foiled two attempts to smuggle narcotic tablets reaching 1.025 million.
In the first attempt 446,000 Captagon tablets were seized.
They were hidden in the spare tire of one of the buses coming to the Kingdom.
In the second attempt, 579,350 Captagon narcotic pills were seized. They were concealed in paint rolls, Director General of Al-Haditha Customs Ibrahim Al-Enizi said.
In 2010 Saudi Arabia received around 7 tons of Captagon tablets, one of the most popular forms of amphetamine in the Middle East, representing around a third of total world supply, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Production of Captagon in Syria has soared over the past two years as a result of the breakdown in order caused by the country’s civil war.