3-year drug crackdown: Iraq busts 230 networks

Shafaq News – Baghdad

Iraq’s Interior Ministry dismantled 230 drug trafficking networks, including 27 international rings, over the past three years, according to data released Monday by the Strategic Center for Human Rights.

The ministry’s Anti-Narcotics Directorate arrested more than 43,000 suspects in trafficking and possession cases during that period, among them 150 foreign nationals. Security forces also seized over 28 tons of narcotics and millions of illicit pills.

Crystal meth accounted for the largest share of consumption nationwide at 37.3%, followed by Captagon at 34.3%. Most users were between the ages of 15 and 30, with higher prevalence recorded in impoverished communities.

Authorities destroyed massive quantities of seized drugs in recent years, including five tons and 54 million pills in 2022, more than two tons in 2023, and over 42 million milligrams of various substances in 2024.

In the first half of 2025 alone, police arrested 284 traffickers—72 of them tied to international networks—and confiscated more than three tons of narcotics, including crystal meth and hallucinogenic pills. Courts have so far convicted 2,663 defendants this year.

The center urged the government to expand rehabilitation facilities through public, private, or investment channels, and pressed parliament to amend Iraq’s 2017 narcotics law to toughen penalties on traffickers while treating users as patients in need of care rather than criminals.