DUBAI: Sharjah Police have arrested an Arab drug dealer they say was trying to peddle 600,000 Captagon pills in the emirate.
The drugs were smuggled in the emirate packaged as weight-loss pills. According to Sharjah Police the street value of the Captagon pills was AED18 million.
This is the first time in many years that such a huge consignment of the pills has been confiscated during an attempt to smuggle the drugs into the country.
The drugs, whose active ingredient is fenethylline, was once used to treat ADHD in children but is now a controlled substance in most countries.
It is abused by youths in the Middle East. Sources from the Anti-Narcotics Department at Sharjah Police said that the dealer confessed to smuggling part of the consignment to a neighboring Gulf country. The police caught the suspect in a sting operation, following a tip-off.
