When Syrian jihadist rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in Damascus and delivered a speech declaring victory against the Assad regime after a lightning-quick military campaign that swept the country and toppled Bashar al-Assad, one mention went unnoticed: The illegals drugs that the Assad regime has been flooding the Middle East with for the past 10 years.
“Syria has become the largest producer of Captagon on earth,” he said. “And today, Syria is going to be purified by the grace of God.”
Mostly unknown outside the Middle East, Captagon is an addictive amphetamine-like pill sometimes called “the poor man’s cocaine,” according to a BBC article.
VIDEO: 🇸🇾 Assad government’s captagon trade exposed in Syria
The collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria has thrown light into the dark corners of his rule, including the industrial-scale export of the banned amphetamine-type stimulant#AFPVertical pic.twitter.com/KRf3Xpmh94
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) December 13, 2024
Its production has proliferated in Syria amid an economy decimated by war, sanctions and the mass displacement of Syrians abroad. Authorities in neighboring countries are finding it difficult to deal with the smuggling of huge quantities of pills across their borders.
All evidence points to Syria being the main source of the illicit trade in Captogan with an annual value put at $5.6 billion. dollars as estimated by the World Bank.
At the scale on which the pills were being produced and shipped, the suspicion was that it was not just the work of criminal gangs – but an industry orchestrated by the regime itself.
Weeks after the speech by Al-Sharaa (previously known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani), striking images have emerged that suggest the suspicion was correct.
Videos taken by Syrians raiding properties allegedly belonging to Assad’s relatives show rooms full of pills being made and packaged, hidden in fake manufactured goods.
Other footage shows piles of pills found at a Syrian military air base, which was set on fire by rebels.
So how will al-Sharaa and its organization, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), deal with the large number of people in Syria and across the Middle East who are addicted to Captagon who may suddenly find themselves without supplies?
Caroline Rose, an expert on Syrian drug trafficking at the New Lines Institute, has concerns about this. “My fear is that they’re going to really suppress supply and not necessarily try to do any kind of demand reduction.”
But there is also a broader question: namely, what effect will the loss of such a lucrative trade have on Syria’s economy? And with those behind it on the move, how will al-Sharaa keep out other criminals waiting in the wings to replace them?
The mine war in the Middle East
The proliferation of Captagon has pushed the Middle East into a veritable mine war.
On the Syrian-Jordanian border several Jordanian soldiers have been killed in an exchange of fire with Captagon smugglers. They also accused Syrian soldiers across the border of helping the smugglers. Other countries in the region have been equally disturbed by the trade.
For a time, Saudi Arabia suspended fruit and vegetable imports from Lebanon because authorities often found containers full of produce such as pomegranates that had been punctured and filled with bags of Captagon pills.
According to the BBC, Assad’s extended family and Syrian armed forces, particularly its Fourth Division, led by Assad’s brother Maher, are believed to be involved in the trade.
Questions surrounding Assad’s brother
Maher al-Assad was probably the most powerful man in Syria besides his brother.
He has been sanctioned by many Western powers for his violence against protesters during the 2011 pro-democracy uprising that sparked the bloody civil war. The French judiciary also issued an international arrest warrant for him and his brother for their alleged responsibility in chemical weapons attacks in Syria in 2013.
Accessing the WhatsApp conversations of a Captagon trader jailed in Lebanon, the BBC highlights the involvement of Maher al-Assad’s Fourth Division and his second-in-command, General Ghassan Bilal.
The revelation was a huge milestone in confirming the role of the Syrian armed forces and Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle in the tragedy.
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