Half-a-ton of cannabis busted at Beirut port

Beirut's port security agents have discovered almost half a ton of cannabis which smugglers attempted to hide in soap boxes, the Lebanese army said on Tuesday.

The joint sting between customs officials and the Lebanese army seize of 488kg of cannabis which drug traffickers attempted to smuggle out of Lebanon to a "foreign country".

The head of anti-narcotics and anti-money laundering unit at the customs service Colonel Nizar al-Jaridi announced after the investigation is completed, the minutes will be handed over to the general prosecutor's office and the internal security forces' anti-narcotics office.

It comes after the head of the Egyptian customs authority announced that agents in Alexandria had seized half a ton of cannabis coming from Lebanon.

Magdy Abdel Aziz revealed to Egyptian newspaper Sada Al-Balad that they foiled the plan to smuggle the drugs into Egypt by ship from the port of Beirut. 

The Bekaa Valley has been a centre for Lebanon's hashish trade, with cannabis plants cultivated in the area.