Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether Captogan has been found in the UK; and whether his Department is taking steps to prevent it becoming available.

In December 2021, the Government launched its ten-year drugs strategy, to cut crime and save lives. As part of this, £300 million has been allocated to fund activity to break drug supply chains from end-to-end, This includes restricting upstream flow, securing the UK border, and ensuring we remain agile in the face of changing threats.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) regularly assess the threat posed to the UK by the trafficking of illicit drugs. At this time, we are not aware of any captagon on UK streets and to date, no instances of captagon being seized at a UK border have been recorded; however, shipments have been seized in Europe.

As such, the UK will continue to seek coordinated global action to address the effects of the captagon trade, in close cooperation with our regional partners.

Beyond this, the UK Government and its law enforcement partners are leveraging our extensive international networks to maximise cooperation with other governments to tackle drug trafficking upstream. This includes identifying and disrupting organised crime groups aiming to exploit the UK, and seizing drugs before and during their journey to the UK.

Additionally, we are also funding Border Force and the NCA to develop and deliver innovative intelligence-led approaches to securing our border which keeps pace with changes to routes and methods used by criminals.