Nigeria Arrests, Seizes ISIS, Assad Captagon Courage Pills Fueling Crimes https://osazuwaakonedo.news/nigeria-arrests-seizes-isis-assad-captagon-courage-pills-fueling-crimes/ #Apapa #Assad #Italy #Kwara #Lagos #Syria Authority in Nigeria, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA for the second time in five years has intercepted and seized a deadly large consignment of illicit drug known as Captagon or chemical courage that gives users apparent super power to fight and stay longer for days or more without food, the illicit drug which also help users conquer the power of fear was first seized in 2020 at Apapa seaport in Lagos by the Nigeria authority, and in late April 2026, operatives of the Agency again intercepted a consignment of the amphetamine substance in Kwara state, the seizure may have confirmed that Captagon, specifically known for inducing prolonged wakefulness and reduced fear, is now being actively smuggled toward conflict zones in the Northeastern Nigeria that has recorded thousands of deaths since more than a decade, this, according to some public confessions that mentioned Captagon by name in the Lake Chad region, there is extensive evidence from captured fighters and survivors regarding the use of "white pills" and "combat drugs" to maintain energy and endure starvation, inline with this, a confessions of captured Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province, ISWAP fighters have detailed their reliance on drugs to sustain them in the bush, accordingly, a 21-year-old former Boko Haram fighter, Ali Modu testified about the group's systematic use of narcotics to manipulate and control its members, Ali Modu who escaped in 2021 after years of being allegedly forced to fight, provided a rare look into the internal mechanics of "the push"—the psychological and chemical preparation required for combat, saying, drugs were mandatory before operations; "they told us when you take it you will be less afraid—you will be strong and courageous", adding that without these pills, fighters felt too weak or fearful to engage in battle, that aside, some captured insurgents have described a cycle where drugs were once "plentiful" but became scarce as military pressure grew, and during these times, they used the drugs specifically to numb the pain of hunger when food supplies were cut off for months, as supplies dwindled, high-potency drugs were reserved strictly for commanders and those actively heading into raids to ensure they didn't retreat, survivor accounts; both former captives and civilian frequently mentioned the "zombie-like" or "robotic" state of the insurgents or the "Strange Strength", which escaped women have reported that fighters would go for days without sleeping or eating proper meals, appearing hyper-alert and aggressive, specifically, a reported drugged captive, a 16-year-old girl who escaped Boko Haram testified that the Islamic militants would force-drug girls when they started crying or showed signs of trauma to "knoc
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00:00Authority in Nigeria, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA for the second time in five years has intercepted and
00:09seized a deadly large consignment of illicit drug known as captagon or chemical courage that gives users apparent superpower to
00:17fight and stay longer for days or more without food.
00:20The illicit drug which also help users conquer the power of fear was first seized in 2020 at Apapa seaport
00:28in Lagos by the Nigeria Authority, and in late April 2026, operatives of the agency again intercepted a consignment of
00:36the amphetamine substance in Kwara State.
00:39The seizure may have confirmed that captagon, specifically known for inducing prolonged wakefulness and reduced fear, is now being actively
00:47smuggled toward conflict zones in the northeastern Nigeria that has recorded thousands of deaths since more than a decade.
00:54This, according to some public confessions that mentioned captagon by name in the Lake Chad region, there is extensive evidence
01:01from captured fighters and survivors regarding the use of, white pills, and, combat drugs, to maintain energy and endure starvation,
01:10in line with this.
01:12A confessions of captured Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa province, ISWAP fighters have detailed their reliance on drugs
01:20to sustain them in the bush, accordingly, a 21-year-old former Boko Haram fighter, Ali Modu testified about the
01:28group's systematic use of narcotics to manipulate and control its members, Ali Modu who escaped in 2021 after years of
01:36being allegedly forced to fight, provided a rare look into the internal mechanics of,
01:41the push, the psychological and chemical preparation required for combat, saying, drugs were mandatory before operations. They told us when
01:50you take it you will be less afraid, you will be strong and courageous, adding that without these pills, fighters
01:56felt too weak or fearful to engage in battle, that aside, some captured insurgents have described the cycle where drugs
02:04were once, plentiful, but became scarce as military pressure grew,
02:08and during these times, they used the drugs specifically to numb the pain of hunger when food supplies were cut
02:14off for months. As supplies dwindled, high-potency drugs were reserved strictly for commanders and those actively heading into raids
02:22to ensure they didn't retreat, survivor accounts.
02:25Both former captives and civilian frequently mentioned the zombie-like, or robotic, state of the insurgents or the strange strength,
02:35which escaped women have reported that fighters would go for days without sleeping or eating proper meals, appearing hyper-alert
02:42and aggressive, specifically, a reported drugged captive, a 16-year-old girl who escaped Boko Haram testified that the Islamic
02:50militants
02:51would force would force drugs would force drug girls when they started crying or showed signs of trauma to, knock
02:57them out, or make them compliant.
02:59The 16-year-old girl, Mayamu Joseph held captive for nine years in a Boko Haram camp within the Sambisa
03:07forest before escaping in July 2023 shared with the aid agency,
03:13paid to the church in detail the horrific conditions and psychological control methods used by the militants, stating,
03:20Whenever girls cried or showed signs of trauma, militants would force drug them to, knock them out, or ensure they
03:27were compliant,
03:28while captagon before was the, terror drug, of the Middle East, notably used by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
03:36ISIS and ousted President Bashar al-Assad of Syria that were mass-producing and supplying captagon drugs to several parts
03:43of the world,
03:43especially countries in the Middle East and Africa as source of revenue generation and manipulating their own fighters to become
03:50more dangerous in attacking and showing no mercy to their enemies.
03:54But some security intelligence reports indicated that the shipping of captagon from Syria into West Africa was
04:01primarily an industrial-scale operation run by the Assad regime, using sophisticated maritime, re-routing, strategies to bypass international detection,
04:12while ISIS aided the smuggling and the drugs use and small-scale trafficking to fund its fighters,
04:18investigations have found that the group lacked the state-controlled ports and infrastructure required for the massive shipments recently discovered
04:26in Africa,
04:27which, which, suggests, the Assad regime, specifically the 4th Armored Division, used a complex maritime relay system,
04:35thus, massive shipments originated from the Syrian state-controlled ports of Latakia and Tartus
04:42and the transit ships often stopped at ports in Libya, Egypt, or Southern Europe like Italy's port of Salerno to
04:49change cargo papers or cleanse the shipment origin,
04:52with countries like Nigeria and Morocco identified as transit points where captagon is offloaded before being smuggled back toward the
05:01Gulf or distributed locally.
05:03It would be recalled that the drug was originally and legally invented in 1961 by the German pharmaceutical company,
05:11Degussa Ag as a legal treatment for conditions like Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,
05:17ADHD which is a childhood brain's neurodevelopmental condition that typically involves
05:22inattention, difficulty staying focused or organized, hyperactivity, excessive movement or restlessness, impulsivity,
05:31acting without thinking about the consequences, and in addition to ADHD treatment,
05:36the captagon drug was originally also meant to cure narcolepsy and depression
05:41and the drug originally acted as a milder stimulant alternative to pure amphetamines,
05:46providing the benefits of focus and alertness with fewer cardiovascular side effects,
05:51but, however, due to its high potential for addiction and abuse,
05:55the World Health Organization, WHO listed it as a controlled substance in 1986,
06:02which led most countries and the original manufacturers to stop its legal production and distribution.
06:08According to Al Jazeera News report in late 2024,
06:13four days since the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria,
06:17opposition fighters who have taken control of Damascus have uncovered large stashes of captagon,
06:23a narcotic substance that has long been mass-produced in the country,
06:27so much so that it became almost synonymous with the nation's removed leadership.
06:32Ahmed al-Shara, also referred to as al-Julani,
06:35the top commander of the Hayat Tahir al-Sham,
06:39HTS, the most powerful group among the rebels who have overthrown al-Assad,
06:44has in recent days accused the former regime of turning Syria into
06:48the world's leading source of captagon.
06:51He has promised to crack down on captagon manufacture and trade.
06:55An addictive, amphetamine-type stimulant,
06:58captagon has been primarily produced in Syria in recent years and smuggled to the Gulf states.
07:04That turned the narcotic substance into a bargaining chip for al-Assad in talks that led to the Arab
07:10League reinstating Syria's membership last year, as nations looked to curb the illicit drug trade.
07:16At a May 1, 2023 meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Amman,
07:21Damascus agreed to cooperate with Jordan and Iraq to identify sources of drug production and smuggling,
07:27according to a statement from Jordan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
07:32A week later, a high-profile Syrian drug smuggler and his family were killed in an air raid,
07:38attributed to Jordan, in southern Syria.
07:41Captagon was the brand name of a psychoactive medicine produced in the 1960s by the German company
07:47Degussa Pharma Gruppi.
07:48It was mainly prescribed as a treatment for attention deficit disorder,
07:54narcolepsy and as a central nervous system stimulant.
07:57Captagon tablets contained phenytoflene,
08:00a synthetic drug of the phenethylamine family to which amphetamine also belongs.
08:05In 1986, phenytoflene was included in Schedule 2 of the
08:10United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances 1971,
08:15and most countries discontinued the use of Captagon.
08:19The International Narcotics Control Board said in 2011 that no country had produced phenytoflene since 2009.
08:27But production didn't really stop, did it?
08:31As official production ceased,
08:33some of the remaining stocks were smuggled out of Eastern Europe,
08:36in particular Bulgaria, to the Middle East.
08:39Eventually, new counterfeit tablets labeled Captagon were produced in the 1990s
08:45to early 2000s in Bulgaria,
08:47according to a 2018 report by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drugs Addiction.
08:53The drugs were then smuggled out of the country by Balkan and Turkish criminal networks to the Arabian Peninsula.
09:00Strict crackdowns on production by Turkish and Bulgarian authorities,
09:04which included the closure of 18 mostly large-scale laboratories involved in amphetamine synthesis,
09:10resulted in a drastic reduction in trade from the Balkans.
09:14In 2011, after a brutal government crackdown on anti-Assad protesters,
09:20Syria descended into civil war.
09:22Internationally isolated and wracked by fighting,
09:25the country was plunged into an economic crisis.
09:28Although Damascus denied any involvement in the trade,
09:32observers say production and smuggling of the drug brought in billions of dollars for al-Assad,
09:37his associates and allies as they looked for an economic lifeline.
09:41According to a New Lines Institute report,
09:45the now-ejected Syrian government used local alliance structures with other armed groups
09:50such as Hezbollah for technical and logistical support in Captagon production and trafficking.
09:55Experts say most of global Captagon production is now in Syria,
10:00with the wealthy Gulf states as the primary destination.
10:03Al Jazeera report ends in quotes.
10:05The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency,
10:09NDLEA in a news release signed and made available by its spokesperson,
10:14Femi Baba Femi on Sunday April 26,
10:172026 stated in quotes that,
10:19Barely five years after the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency,
10:25NDLEA,
10:26recorded the first seizure of the deadly terror drug,
10:29Captagon,
10:30in Africa at the Apapa seaport in Lagos,
10:32operatives of the agency have again intercepted a consignment of the amphetamine substance in Quara State.
10:39Captagon,
10:40a tiny,
10:41highly addictive pill,
10:43widely available across the Middle East,
10:45produces a euphoric intensity in users,
10:47allowing them to stay awake for days,
10:50making them fearless,
10:51and predisposes them to reckless action that puts the lives of people around them in jeopardy.
10:56Its production and sale are controlled by militias and large criminal groups linked to the Islamic State in Iraq and
11:03Syria,
11:04ISIS,
11:05as a means of generating funds for weapons and combatants,
11:08and for use as a stimulant to keep them fighting.
11:11The latest seizure of Captagon,
11:14which street value costs as much as $25 a pill,
11:18was made on Tuesday 21 April 2026 when NDLEA operatives on patrol along Bode Sardu Road,
11:26Quara State intercepted a trailer conveying passengers.
11:29A search conducted on one of the passengers,
11:3333-year-old Nasiru Mouazou led to the recovery of 10 packs of Captagon consisting of 10,000 pills
11:40and 9 packets of Tapantadol 250 mg.
11:44In another interdiction operation at the Bode Sardu patrol point,
11:49NDLEA offices on Friday 24 April intercepted a trailer marked RMY-70XA.
11:55A search of the truck led to the recovery of 155,900 capsules of Tramadol,
12:036,000 ampoules of Tramadol injection,
12:063,000 tablets of County Codamol and 9,000 tablets of Bromazepam,
12:11concealed in a false compartment constructed under the trailer.
12:15A 24-year-old suspect Aminu Issa has been taken into custody in connection with the seizure.
12:21Meanwhile, NDLEA operatives in Oyo State on Tuesday 21 April intercepted a commercial bus
12:29with registration number MNA-963ZNY at Aconiele-Longabaden, Oyo Expressway,
12:37while N. Route Sokato, a 33-year-old passenger S. Prince Emeka was brought down from the vehicle
12:44and taken for body scan, which result confirmed ingestion of illicit drug.
12:49The suspect who claims to be a businessman in Sokato was subsequently placed under close
12:54excretion observation during which he excreted a total of 45, 45, pellets of cocaine with a total
13:01weight of 1.043 kilograms in three excretions. The decision to travel by road to Sokato with the
13:09illicit drug in his stomach was to evade detection by NDLEA at the airport while further investigation
13:15reveals that upon arrival in Sokato, the suspect was to excrete the pellets, rest for a few days,
13:22and subsequently re-ingest the substances to continue the journey through the trans-Saharan
13:27routes, with Algeria as a transit point and possible final destination in Europe.
13:32In Edo State, NDLEA offices on patrol along Benin, Lagos Expressway on Saturday 25 h April intercepted
13:41a truck marked NLC 146 FC conveying 1,196,000 pills of pharmaceutical opioids, among others.
13:52Two suspects, Ose J. L. G. Binibo, 43, and Omi G. Malik, 44, were apprehended in connection
14:01with the seizure of the consignments heading to Anitsha, Anambra State. While a suspect Rashid
14:07Ibuowo, 40, was arrested at Mile 2 Expressway in Lagos on Saturday 25 April conveying 810 kg
14:15of Arizona, a strain of cannabis, another suspect Mukta Bello, 35, was nabbed by NDLEA operatives
14:24on Wednesday 22 April at Massau Road, Azare, Katagon local government area, Bauchi State
14:31with 288 blocks of skunk weighing 154.5 kg. In Akiti State, a total of 466.8 kg of skunk
14:43were recovered from the house of a suspect Laird John Matthew, 56, at Alaro Street, Sinboda
14:49Kitty, from where he planned to transport them to Yola, Adamawa State. While 20,000 kg of the
14:56same psychoactive substance were destroyed on 8 hectares of farmland in Uynga community,
15:01Akampa local government area, Cross River State on Saturday 25 April when NDLEA offices supported
15:08by soldiers raided the community and recovered 170 kg of processed cannabis.
15:17394, 394, pieces of IED components were seized from a suspect Muhammad Aliou, 26, by NDLEA operatives
15:26on patrol along Contagora, Zuru Road, Niger State on Wednesday 22 April. He was conveying the IED
15:34materials in a red Toyota car with registration number KNT 617 Air to Shadadi, Moriga local government
15:43area. The suspect and exhibit are to be transferred to the relevant security agency for further
15:49investigation. With the same zeal, commands and formations of the agency across the country
15:55continued their war against drug abuse, WADA, sensitization activities in schools, worship
16:01centers, workplaces and communities among others in the past week. These include, WADA enlightenment
16:08lecture for students and staff of Malam Salissu Islamic School, HIKO, Niger State, Madarasachal
16:15Abdulrahman Bin Al-Flatah Fizil Quran, Dharasal Ilami Abadawar, Nasarawa local government area,
16:23Kano, Sani Zango Dara model primary school, Zango, Katsina, and members of community development
16:30associations, Bidagri local government area Lagos while the zonal commander, zone 4 command of NDLEA,
16:38ACGN Brigid Vyashiyama led other senior offices of the zone on a WADA advocacy visit to Nasarawa
16:45state governor, engineer Abdullahi Suleh, among others. While commending the offices and men of
16:52Kwara, Uyo, Edo, Cross River, Bauchi, Akiti, Niger and Lagos commands of the agency for the arrests and
17:00seizures, chairman, chief executive officer of NDLEA. Brigadier General Mohammed Baba Mawa, retired,
17:08noted the drug supply reduction efforts balanced with WADA sensitization activities while he charged
17:14them and their compatriots across the country to maintain the current tempo. He commended the tactical
17:20precision of NDLEA. Operatives following the interception of 10,000 pills of Kaptagan in Kwara state,
17:27noting that the bust is a major blow to drug syndicates attempting to revive a pipeline that
17:33has been largely dormant since the landmark seizure at the Apapa seaport in Lagos five years ago.
17:40Mawa described the seizure as a wake-up call, noting that Kaptagan, a potent amphetamine often
17:46linked to insurgent groups for its ability to inhibit fear and fatigue, remains a target for
17:51traffickers looking to fuel insecurity. We are not just seizing pills. We are disrupting the fuel that
17:57powers violence in our communities. Our operatives remain on high alert across all frontiers to
18:03ensure this illicit trade finds no foothold, he stated.
18:09officers who are unneeded, bringing youth to news in a more digital world.
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