Extremist organisations are using the proceeds of drug trafficking around the region, including in the Gulf to fund their wars.

That’s according to experts at the Hemaya International Forum in Dubai, who warned that seizures of the amphetamine Captagon, which is often produced by extremists fighting in Syria, has increased in the Middle East and North Africa, including the UAE.

They warned that illegal laboratories are capable of making more than $19 million a day in profits.

The National quoted Michelle Spahn, an attache at the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s Dubai office, as saying that Captagon serves as significant financial resource for organisations such as Hezbollah and ISIL.

Colonel Abdul Rahman Al Owais, an official from the Ministry of the Interior, also told the forum that the UAE had seized 12 million Captagon tablets last year, and had arrested 169 people involved in trafficking the pills between 2013 and 2015.

Source: m.arabianbusiness.com