The Libyan authorities have seized around 100,000 narcotic pills smuggled from Europe and shaped like the face of the North African nation’s ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi, a security agency in Tripoli has reported.
The Deterrence Agency for Combating Terrorism and Organized Crime identified the drugs as XTC, commonly known as ecstasy pills, in a statement issued on Saturday. Images published by the agency showed sacks of brown pills molded into Gaddafi’s head and shoulders, with his facial features and distinctive robes pressed into their surface.
The agency said investigators received information about a gang smuggling narcotics through a European country for distribution in Libya. Officers immediately began a “wide-ranging tracking operation,” following the shipment until it entered the country through a seaport. A search uncovered the pills “carefully concealed” inside a Renault Master cargo van, it added. The authority said the suspects had been referred to prosecutors but did not disclose their identities.
Libya has become a major regional transit point for synthetic drugs and other narcotics destined for local users and markets elsewhere in North Africa, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The UN agency said trafficking networks have exploited the instability and fragmented security system that followed the NATO-backed uprising that overthrew Gaddafi in 2011.
The country remains divided between political rivals, with the UN-recognized Government of National Unity in Tripoli and an eastern administration aligned with military commander Khalifa Haftar.
The UNODC report identified Libya as a major route for cocaine bound for Europe and the Middle East and for synthetic drugs entering North Africa and other parts of the continent. According to the agency, recorded cocaine seizures in the country in 2024 alone were valued at between $3.7 million and $7.8 million.
The Libyan authorities have previously reported several major drug busts. Customs officers at Benghazi port seized more than 17.8 million Captagon tablets concealed in three containers of apples shipped from Syria in March 2024. Later that month, prosecutors announced the seizure of 128 kg of cocaine stored in two food warehouses in the eastern city of Al-Bayda.