Five million narcotic pills found in vehicle parked on border

AMMAN — Anti-Narcotics Department (AND) personnel have found 5 million narcotic pills hidden in a vehicle near a border crossing, the Public Security Department (PSD) said Sunday.

A PSD statement carried by the Jordan News Agency, Petra, said an AND officer at a border crossing had suspicions about a vehicle that was parked near the Kingdom’s border with a neighbouring country.

The officer, with the help of personnel at the border crossing, monitored the vehicle to see if anyone approached it but no one did, prompting AND to send a special inspection team to examine it for hazardous material and then conduct a search.

The search yielded the narcotic pills and two automatic weapons, and an investigation is under way to locate potential suspects, PSD said.

The statement did not identify the border crossing where the vehicle was parked and gave no further details on the type of narcotic pills found.

Authorities say the Kingdom is not a target country for drug smugglers, and is only a transit point for trafficking to other neighbouring countries.

Pills such as Captagon (fenethylline) are usually manufactured and transported from neighbouring countries in the north via Jordan to rich countries on the southern borders.

Smugglers target rich countries because one Captagon pill there is worth around JD7, while its market value in Jordan does not exceed JD1 per pill, officials have told The Jordan Times.