Spokesman for the Saudi Customs Department Abdullah Al-Kharboush said on Sunday that a substantial amount of narcotics had also been seized.

“The six-month haul included 44,000 bottles of alcohol, consumption of which is strictly forbidden in the Kingdom under Islamic law,” he said.

He noted that in June, police arrested 125 people of various nationalities for drug trafficking.

They were caught in possession of heroin, hashish and Captagon tablets.

Those arrested included 76 Saudis, 16 Yemenis, nine Pakistanis, four Syrians, four Iraqis, three Sudanese, three Egyptians, three Turks, two Omanis, one Kuwaiti, one Somali, one Eritrean, one Ethiopian, and one Bangladeshi. “The arrests underscored the Kingdom’s growing concerns about illegal drug use and trafficking through its borders,” Al-Kharboush said.

Earlier the Anti-Narcotics Directorate sponsored a two-day conference in Riyadh as part of the Kingdom’s desire to raise domestic awareness of the problem and expand regional anti-smuggling cooperation.

The conference was attended by officials from neighboring states, including Iran, as well as from the United Nations, Britain and the United States.

Second Deputy Premier and Minister of Interior Prince Naif said in a statement that the Kingdom wanted to consolidate international efforts to combat drug smuggling in order “to protect our society from this dangerous phenomenon.”

Although reliable statistics on illegal drug use are not available, there is a mounting concern within both Saudi society and government circles that young people are increasingly turning to substance abuse to alleviate feelings of boredom or depression.

A study of the Interior Ministry’s anti-narcotic division states that in 2009, authorities recorded 90,300 cases of drug peddling in the Kingdom, of whom two-thirds were Saudi.

The report also states that 37,828 people were accused of drug-related crimes in 2009 and that officials had seized 15 tons of hashish, 60,000 kg of heroin, 775,000 tons of qat, and 62.1 million Captagon pills.