Biggest Seizure of Amphetamines in the World, Coming from Syrian Jihadists

June 3, 2020 (EIRNS)—On July 1, Italian police made a seizure in the port of Salerno of 14 tons of amphetamines made by the Islamic State in Syria and worth about €1 billion. It was intended to be sold on the European market “to finance terrorism,” police said. During the lockdown, production and sale of drugs has virtually stopped in Italy, but not in Syria.

“We know that the Islamic State finances its terrorist activities mainly by trafficking drugs made in Syria, which in the past few years has become the world’s largest producer of amphetamines,” the police statement said.

The drug, known by its brand name Captagon, was originally developed as a prescription drug for medical use, but was banned beginning in the 1980s in most nations of the world. Illegal versions have been dubbed “the Jihad Drug”—after being widely used by ISIS fighters in combat—the police said. Citing the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Naples police said ISIS “makes extensive use of it in all territories over which it exerts influence and where it controls the drug trade.”

Two weeks ago, also at the port of Salerno, police seized a container sent from Syria hiding 2,800 kilos (6,200 pounds) of hashish and over 1 million amphetamine pills bearing the same symbol as those intercepted on July 1.

La Repubblica daily reported that police were suspicious because the container, ostensibly containing “desks and gym clothes,” was destined for Libya, via a Swiss company.

What does all this say about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Syrian jihadist militias in Libya?