by Joseph Haboush Josie Ensor, beirut –Telegraph— Lebanese security forces have made the country’s biggest-ever drugs bust after confiscating 15 tonnes of hashish, which had been prepped to be shipped abroad. Pictures of the haul shared online showed thousands of packets of drugs lined up to fill an entire football field. “This is the biggest bust in the history of Lebanon with regards to drugs produced and prepared to be sold,” a Internal Security Forces (ISF) source told The Telegraph. A video showed security forces raiding a warehouse in southern Beirut where paint buckets were filled with the cannabis-products. The labels on the buckets belonged to a paint factory that was not related to the smuggling operation, according to an ISF statement.

Major General Imad Othman, the head of the ISF, said seven people had been arrested, including a Customs employee. “The drugs were set to leave Lebanon and go to Libya and then to Egypt, but we don’t know what the final destination was yet,” Gen Othman said. Last year, the Lebanese Army raided three of the homes owned by Ali Nasri Shamas, a notorious drug lord, where they found 4.5 kilograms of cocaine and 14.5 kilograms of hashish. It is unclear what the ISF plans to do with the latest haul, but in the past Lebanese security has burned crops of cannabis. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has ranked Lebanon in as one of the world’s top five sources of cannabis resin. Much of it is produced in the futile Bekaa region in the east. The cultivation of cannabis itself was forbidden in 1992, under pressure from the United States. However, large amounts are grown within the country, and personal use as long as not in public is not a major issue.