LONDON: Authorities in Syria arrested three people suspected of smuggling drugs into the country from Lebanon and seized 200,000 narcotics pills in two operations in Damascus Countryside province.

Officers also recovered 61 kg of hashish and 2 kg of marijuana during the operations, the Drug Enforcement Department said in a statement posted on messaging platform Telegram on Tuesday. The arrests followed extensive surveillance, it added, and the suspects were referred for further investigation and legal proceedings.

The drug seizures were the latest in a series of recent operations reported by Syrian authorities near the Lebanese border and in central Syria. On Nov. 7, the department said officers in Homs arrested the suspected leader of a drug-smuggling network, and recovered 120,000 captagon pills and 9 kg of hashish.

A day earlier, border guards intercepted 280 kg of hashish and 28,000 captagon pills near Serghaya in Damascus Countryside, the Ministry of Defense said. The smugglers opened fire on the guards when confronted and fled toward Lebanon, it added.

The Syria-Lebanon border remains a conduit for drug trafficking despite efforts by authorities to tighten security. A report published in October by the New Lines Institute, a nonpartisan American foreign policy think tank, said the captagon trade had become more fragmented since the fall of Syria’s former president, Bashar Assad, and his regime in December 2024, with smaller criminal networks continuing to operate along porous border areas.