Iraqi authorities seized record quantities of the potent stimulant captagon last year, at an estimated value of up to $144 million, with the country increasingly a critical drug conduit, a UN report said Monday. “Iraq has been experiencing a dramatic surge in drug trafficking and consumption for the past five years,” according to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report. In 2023 alone, authorities “seized a record-high 24 million captagon tablets”, the equivalent of over 4.1 tonnes, with an estimated “retail value” of between $84 million and $144 million, it said. “Iraq appear…