Police seizes over 55 tonnes of drugs during global crackdown

Coordinated police raids in 93 countries have netted more than 55 tonnes of drugs including a cocaine, heroin and millions of synthetic drug pills, the Interpol police organisation said on Wednesday.

The swoops included cocaine stashed in a steamroller on a ship about to leave Brazil for Ivory Coast, an ecstasy lab in a Dutch house and, in the Middle East, captagon pills, which are popular in that region.

The Interpol organisation, based in the French city of Lyon, said 1,300 people in all were arrested in an operation codenamed Lionfish, and which took place between Sept. 17 and Oct. 8.

Other swoops in southeast Asia netted 18 million tablets of Yaba, a synthetic substance sometimes called the "madness drug".

(With inputs from agencies.)