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The Zakat Tax and Customs Authority announced that land sea and air ports across Saudi Arabia carried out 1126 seizures of prohibited items during the week leading up to October 10. ZATCA’s statement specified that 35 types of narcotics formed part of the haul including hashish cocaine heroin crystal meth and Captagon pills. The authority added that officers had also confiscated 300 other prohibited materials while foiling 810 attempts to smuggle tobacco products and derivatives plus eight cash-related cases.
Similar operations have taken place on a weekly basis throughout the year with varying totals. A ZATCA release from September 19 reported 1173 seizures for the preceding seven days that encompassed 70 narcotic varieties and 216 additional banned items. The authority’s late August update had logged 1078 seizures that included 107 narcotic types along with substantial tobacco and cash interceptions.
For the complete year of 2025 the authority prevented the entry of 24 million narcotic pills and 1417 kilograms of other drugs and prohibited materials according to its official January 2026 summary. That annual effort involved 1884 separate smuggling cases many of which featured concealment inside commercial loads vehicles or personal baggage. ZATCA attributed the results to modern security technologies and close coordination with the General Directorate of Narcotics Control.
Just days before the latest weekly announcement ZATCA foiled an attempt to bring more than 51000 Captagon pills into the Kingdom through Al-Haditha Port. Spokesperson Hamoud Al-Harbi told Arab News that inspectors located the amphetamine tablets hidden throughout a truck using screening equipment and detection dogs. The seizure formed part of the authority’s continued focus on disrupting large-scale narcotics trafficking.
The weekly seizures reflect the scale of enforcement at the Kingdom’s multiple ports of entry. ZATCA maintains operations at dozens of border crossings that process both commercial freight and passenger traffic daily. Authority figures from prior periods show that narcotics and tobacco consistently account for the majority of intercepted items.
Captagon has featured heavily in recent ZATCA actions with millions of pills seized annually. The authority’s 2025 data placed the Captagon component at 24 million tablets prevented from entering the market. Such statistics come from the official ZATCA year-end review released at the start of 2026.
