Kuwait has carried out the largest drugs bust in its history, seizing nearly 500 million dollars’ worth of a medicine that has become a popular party drug, authorities announced on Wednesday. The haul included almost four million capsules ready for sale along with a large quantity of powder, said Sheikh Fahad Al Yousef, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior.
The drug is Lyrica, a brand of the anxiety and epilepsy medicine pregabalin, which can produce effects similar to alcohol when used recreationally. The seizure was valued at 150 million Kuwaiti dinars, about 485 million dollars, Sheikh Fahad said during a drug-prevention event, adding that authorities had also uncovered a factory producing Lyrica and equipment used to prepare the capsules.
The raid “underscores the magnitude of the threat posed by these substances, which are often packaged in capsules, and highlights the significant efforts being made to combat this scourge,” Kuwaiti state media said. Pregabalin has legitimate medical uses, prescribed to limit the abnormal brain activity behind seizures, to ease anxiety, or to treat nerve pain linked to diabetes and shingles.
But it has also become a popular recreational drug across the Middle East. Kuwait seized 15 million illegally obtained pills from a farm near the Saudi border in 2023, and police in the UAE have previously caught dealers offering Lyrica on WhatsApp alongside other narcotics. Kuwait passed a new drugs law last year, which the minister said had “become a source of fear for drug dealers,” adding that authorities were “working with the spirit of one team to eradicate that scourge.”
Like many countries in the region, Kuwait is also trying to stamp out the trade in Captagon, a widely abused amphetamine. In February, Kuwaiti authorities seized more than 300,000 Captagon pills in a joint operation with neighbouring Iraq, and the country was also involved in an operation with the UAE in which Dubai Police seized more than 14 million Captagon pills hidden inside sacks of corn across five shipping containers.
