Yemen’s Interior Ministry announced on Saturday that it had arrested a group of Lebanese and Syrian nationals in Aden who were preparing to move into Houthi-controlled areas to oversee the establishment of a new factory for producing narcotic pills.
In a statement, the ministry said security forces in the temporary capital, Aden, apprehended these individuals about three months ago, along with several Yemenis linked to the Houthis.
According to the ministry, the detainees had been tasked with overseeing the construction of the factory after earlier attempts to ship the necessary equipment to Sanaa had failed.
“Investigations confirmed that the Iranian regime was the primary financier and coordinator of these networks, seeking to establish drug factories across Yemen as part of a wider plan to turn the country into a hub for exporting narcotics to the region,” the ministry stated.
The Yemeni authorities added that since the decline of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, Tehran had shifted some of its illicit operations into Yemen, working with the Houthis to smuggle equipment and production materials in small shipments to avoid detection.
Yemeni authorities had previously announced the foiling of a similar attempt to establish a narcotics factory in the eastern province of Al-Mahra.
“This latest operation also uncovered several smuggling cells and enabled the tracking of individuals collaborating with the networks,” according to the text.
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