Police in Salerno, Italy made the largest drug seizure in history: 15.4 tons of amphetamines valued at US$1.12 billion. The Guardia di Finanza say that the pills—found inside three shipping containers at the port—were produced by ISIS in Syria. Scanners didn't detect the haul but police knew to expect them. From CNN:
"We weren't able to see them but we knew it was arriving because of our ongoing investigations we have with the Camorra (Italian organized crime group)," [Commander Domenico Napolitano] said[…]
The Camorra bring the drugs to Italy and take a cut for helping to distribute them, Napolitano added.
The pills carried the "Captagon" logo, which "distinguishes the 'drug of Jihad,'" according to the statement.[…]
"The hypothesis is that during the lockdown, due to the global epidemiological emergency, the production and distribution of synthetic drugs in Europe has practically stopped and therefore many traffickers with different organized crime groups have turned to Syria, where it does not seem to have slowed down," police said.[…]
Captagon was originally the brand name for a medicinal product containing the synthetic stimulant fenethylline. It is no longer produced or used, but drugs carrying the Captagon name are regularly seized in the Middle East, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).
