Libyan authorities have seized a shipment of tens of thousands of ecstasy pills, each marked with the face of ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi ​and smuggled in from Europe, security officials said.

Images released by ‌a security agency in Tripoli showed sacks of brown pellets that were moulded into the shape of Gaddafi's head and shoulders, with the lines of his distinctive features ​and robes pressed into their surface.

Libya has become a major regional ​transit hub for synthetic drugs and other narcotics on their ⁠way to local users and other parts of North Africa and the ​wider continent, according to a U.N. report released in January.

Drug gangs were taking ​advantage of the tumultuous situation in the country since 2011, said the report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. That year, Gaddafi was toppled in a NATO-backed ​uprising, plunging Libya into a prolonged period of internal conflict and division.

Security agents ​got a tip-off that a gang was planning to send the drugs by sea and ‌tracked ⁠the shipment until it arrived, read the statement issued late on Saturday from Al Rada for Combating Terrorism and Organized Crime, a security agency under the Tripoli-based Presidential Council.

Officers intercepted the shipment after it arrived and found the pills hidden ​in a cargo ​van, the statement ⁠added.

"The operation yielded a total of approximately 100,000 'XTC' (Ecstasy) pills," and a number of suspects were referred to prosecutors, it ​said. The pills had come via a European country ​and arrived ⁠at a Libyan port, the agency added, without naming either.

Tripoli's Presidential Council has acted as head of state since a U.N.-facilitated dialogue with the U.N.-recognised Government of National ⁠Unity ​in 2021.

Libya remains divided between the GNU ​in the west and authorities under military commander Khalifa Haftar, who controls the east and much ​of its south.