Italian police seizes drugs worth $1.12 billion, world's largest bust

Rome: Italy Police have confiscated 14 metric tonnes (15.4 US tonnes) of amphetamines allegedly produced by the ISIS in Syria. It is the largest drug bust in the world in terms of both value and quantity, CNN reported.

According to the Guardia di Finanza financial police as saying that the officers had tracked three suspicious containers to the port of Salerno in southwest Italy and found 84 million pills with a market value of EUR 1 billion ($1.12 billion) inside paper cylinders for industrial use.

"We weren`t able to see them but we knew it was arriving because of our ongoing investigations we have with the Camorra (Italian organized crime group)...We intercepted phone calls and members, so we knew what to expect," Commander Domenico Napolitano, head of the financial police for the city of Naples, was quoted as saying.

According to the police report, the pills were marked with `Captagon` logo, which "distinguishes the `drug of Jihad`.

"According to the DEA (US Drug Enforcement Administration), ISIS makes wide use of these drugs in all the territories over which it exerts influence and controls its sale."

"It is known that ISIS/Daesh finances its terrorist activities in large part with the trafficking of synthetic drugs produced largely in Syria, which has become the leading world producer of amphetamines in recent years," the police was quoted.

Meanwhile, Brigadier General Gabriele Failla, head of the financial police in Naples and the surrounding province, was quoted as saying that a number of criminal groups are likely to be behind this huge shipment as traffickers don`t send drugs in this amount at once.

"This is remarkable evidence of the `nexus` between terror financing and organized crime interests," he added.