On Sunday, Libyan authorities thwarted an attempt to smuggle 7.5 million narcotic tablets on board a container ship, docked at the port of Benghazi.
The Attorney General’s Office said that its staff received a report by the General Department for Combating Smuggling and Drugs regarding the cruise No. (YG223A).
“After an inspection of the vessel, 7.5 million prohibited pregabalin tablets were found,” the Office said in a statement.
The Attorney General directed the Public Prosecutor to begin a case against those responsible, in cooperation with the security authorities.
“The illicit trafficking of narcotics, and psychotropic substances and chemicals poses a serious threat to Libyan society,” the statement concluded.
In May 2021, Head of Libya’s Interpol National Central Bureau, Adel Bentaleb claimed that there has been a marked increase in drug traffickers using Libya as a transhipment point. This includes drugs from as far as South America.
“While many of these drugs are neither produced nor consumed here, this has not spared us from the violent crime inevitably wrought by such activity, which we are determined to combat alongside INTERPOL,” Bentaleb said.
INTERPOL has said drugs worth nearly €100 million euros have been seized in Africa and the Middle East, during a large international police operation in March and April of 2021.