ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iraqi and Libyan authorities thwarted an attempt to smuggle 1.2 million Captagon pills into Libya, and arrested a Libyan national suspected of involvement, Iraq’s anti-narcotics directorate announced on Sunday.

The operation was based on intelligence gathered by the directorate’s International Coordination and Cooperation Department and shared with the Libyan counterpart.

The teams “successfully foiled an attempt to smuggle 1.2 million Captagon pills into Libyan territory and arrested a Libyan national suspected of involvement,” the directorate said in a statement, Iraq’s General Directorate for Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances said.

With its extensive borders with Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, Iraq has become a major transit route for drug trafficking, leading Iraqi authorities to often partner with regional and international countries to combat the phenomenon.

In a similar operation in June, Iraqi and Syrian authorities seized 200 kilograms of narcotics “deep inside Syria” and arrested nine people, Iraq’s anti-narcotics directorate announced.

In May, Iraq’s interior ministry revealed that it had seized more than one and a half tons of narcotics since the beginning of 2026 and issued more than 40 death sentences.

Despite imposing severe penalties, Iraq continues to face an escalating drug problem that has intensified since the US invasion in 2003. Iraq's stringent narcotics laws, which impose death or life sentences for drug-related offenses, are a response to the severity of the crisis but have yet to curb the increasing drug use and trafficking fully.

In January, Iraq’s National Security Service (INSS) said it arrested more than 800 individuals on drug-related charges in 2025, in addition to seizing hundreds of kilograms of narcotic substances. The numbers from INSS do not account for all of Iraq’s drug-related arrests and seizures, as multiple official bodies work on combating the spread of narcotics.