Members of Iraq’s National Security Service. (Photo: Official Facebook page of INSS)
Three arrested at checkpoints in Baghdad, Baquba over crystal meth
BAGHDAD — Iraq’s National Security Service said Wednesday it arrested three suspected drug dealers and seized a total of about two kilograms of crystal meth in two separate operations in Baghdad and Diyala’s Baquba district.
The agency said in a statement that intelligence led its personnel to arrest a suspected drug dealer at the Al-Laj checkpoint in Baghdad after obtaining approval from the relevant judge.
“During the field investigation, the suspect confessed to hiding a quantity of narcotics inside his home,” the agency said.
A team then went to the residence and seized 1.5 kilograms of crystal meth, according to the statement.
In a separate operation, National Security Service personnel tracked two suspects, a man and a woman, before arresting them as they passed through the Al-Ghalibiya checkpoint in Baquba.
The agency said the two were caught in possession of nearly half a kilogram of crystal meth.
Iraq has handed down 362 death sentences and 1,500 life terms against convicted drug traffickers since 2023, the Interior Ministry’s Directorate of Narcotics Affairs said in June.
The figures come as Iraq faces a deepening drug crisis. The country has evolved from a transit corridor into both a consumer market and redistribution hub, with traffickers increasingly using sophisticated cross-border networks and, in some cases, GPS-equipped inflatables to move drugs across the Anbar border.