Shafaq News- Baghdad

The Central Criminal Court on Wednesday sentenced a drug trafficker to death after convicting him of trafficking narcotics and finding him with 85 kilograms of drugs, comprising 489,000 Captagon pills.

The pills had been brought into Iraq using a GPS-equipped hot-air balloon for distribution among drug users. The court said the sentence was issued under Article 27/First of Iraq’s Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law No. 50 of 2017, in conjunction with Articles 47, 48 and 49 of the Penal Code.

Earlier, Iraqi security forces intercepted balloons carrying narcotics from Syria into Iraq. One intercepted in September 2025 contained 245,000 Captagon pills, while another in November 2025 carried 22,000.

Brigadier General Akram Al-Rashid, director of Al-Anbar’s Anti-Narcotics Directorate, reported that security forces had intercepted every balloon detected so far. 

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