RIYADH - The Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA) announced that it had thwarted five attempts to smuggle more than 1.4 million Captagon pills at the Al-Haditha Port, on Friday. The authority explained that the quantity of Captagon pills was found hidden inside of trucks, as they detected it through security techniques, in addition to the live means "police dogs" at the port. The authority explained that in the first smuggling attempt, more than 774,000 pills were found hidden in the floor of a truck. Meanwhile, more than 272,000 pills were found hidden in different places in one of the trucks coming to Saudi Arabia through the port in the second attempt, while in the third attempt, 269,767 pills were found with the same previous smuggling method. ZATCA added it has managed to thwart a fourth smuggling attempt, where more than 134,000 pills were found hidden in the floor of a truck. In the fifth attempt, more than 40,000 pills were seized after the smuggler had hidden them inside one of the truck's transmission coolers. The authority clarified that after completing the seizure operations in coordination with the General Directorate of Narcotics Control (GDNC) to ensure the arrest of the recipients of the consignments. As a result, two persons were arrested inside the Kingdom. The authority confirmed on doing its utmost to prevent and thwart any smuggling attempt, stressing that it continues to confiscate and tighten customs control over all imports and continues to combat smuggling in all its forms. The ZATCA called on everyone to communicate with it to report any information related to smuggling crimes through the Security Reports Center (1910), as the center receives security reports in complete secrecy, with a financial reward given to those who report if the reporting information is correct.
