An attempt to smuggle
drugs disguised as sunflower seeds into a prison in the country's north was
thwarted by Lebanon's Internal Security Forces.
Officials announced on
Tuesday that a 25-year-old Lebanese man who attempted to give three bags of the
seeds to a prisoner at Batroun Prison, south of Tripoli, has been detained. The
captagon and Artane (benzhexol) pills, which had been cut in half, had been
substituted for the sunflower seeds that had been removed from their husks.
The video of the
discovery was posted on social media by the security forces.
The incident's time
and the quantity of tablets seized were withheld from public disclosure. The
intended recipient of the cargo and an alleged collaborator have been handed to
anti-drugs authorities in Tripoli for investigation, officials said.
The latest
announcement came a day after the Internal Security Forces said it had blocked
two schemes to import a total of 960,000 captagon tablets and 208 kilograms of
hashish.
In April 2021, when
customs officers at Jeddah Islamic Port uncovered more than five million
captagon pills concealed within pomegranates, Saudi Arabia put a ban on
Lebanese imports of fruits and vegetables. Later that year, in the midst of a
diplomatic dispute, all imports from Lebanon were prohibited.