Image (AFP).
Italy seized more than 24 million tablets of a synthetic opiate that Daesh militants planned to sell to finance attacks around the world, the head of a southern Italian court said on Friday.
The pills were seized by French police and customs officials in the container port of Gioia Tauro, Italy’s biggest, statement said. The US Drug Enforcement Administration collaborated in the investigation.
A video shows police opening a container filled with boxes of Tramadol, a powerful painkiller normally available only on prescription.
With an average sale price of about 2 euros ($2.33) per tablet, the haul was worth 50 million euros, the statement said.
Foreign investigators told the court in the city of Reggio Calabria that the drugs belonged to Daesh.
Reggio Calabria’s chief prosecutor Federico Cafiero De Raho said, that the drugs sales were “managed directly by Islamic State to finance the terrorist activities planned and carried out around the world.
“Part of the illegal profit from their sale would have been used to finance extremist groups in Libya, Syria and Iraq,” he said.
No details on how the illegal shipment was discovered or on its final destination were provided by the court.
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