19 arrested in drug busts in Amman, Mafraq — PSD

AMMAN — The Anti-Narcotics Department (AND) on Thursday announced the arrest of 19 suspects in raids on houses and vehicles in Amman and Mafraq over the past three days, officials said.

Various illegal drugs, stolen vehicles and motorcycles were confiscated in the raids, the Public Security Department (PSD) said in a statement.

In one raid, AND agents confiscated 65,000 illegal pills that were hidden in the dashboard of a vehicle that a suspect was allegedly planning to transport from Mafraq to a neighbouring country, a senior AND official said.

“Our agents received a tip that a man had stashed thousands of Captagon pills that he intended to smuggle to a neighbouring country, so we monitored him for a while and arrested at a border-crossing point,” the AND official told The Jordan Times.

Also in Mafraq, the AND official added, special forces and AND agents raided several homes and arrested six people after receiving information that they were in possession of Captagon pills.

“We monitored their homes and arrested them without any major incident and found 30,000 pills and other illegal narcotics in their possession,” the official added.

Pills such as Captagon, the brand name for fenethylline, are sometimes manufactured and transported from neighbouring countries in the north via Jordan to rich countries on the southern border.  

Smugglers target rich countries where one Captagon pill is sold for around JD7, while its market value in Jordan does not exceed JD1 per pill, officials have previously told The Jordan Times.

Captagon is a synthetic stimulant similar to amphetamines.  Although banned in most countries in the 1980s, illegally produced and smuggled Captagon — sometimes containing amphetamines instead of fenethylline — is a commonly abused drug in the Middle East, according to web sources.

Also on Thursday, 12 people were arrested in the Lubban area in the capital after police received tip offs that some individuals were in possession of private property and illegal drugs, according to the PSD report.

“Special agents stormed homes in the area and arrested 12 individuals without any major incident and no resistance from the suspects,” the AND official added.

All suspects were referred to the State Security Court prosecutor for further questioning and indictment, the AND official said.