The hiding place of the drugs shows creativity and some effort. The small round tablets, marked “Captagon”, lay neatly sealed in plastic between bags of crushed marble. The banned goods weighed around 250 kilograms and promised the Lebanese backers a tidy profit. The drugs came from the Middle East and were to be transported to Saudi Arabia. But they were found in a raid about a year ago in a completely different place: in a remote warehouse in Lower Bavaria.
Accused announce testimony
A trial against two Syrians who are said to have been involved in drug smuggling began at the Regensburg Regional Court on Friday. At the beginning, the 34 and 36-year-old men were silent. According to their defense attorneys, they only want to speak later in the process.
The parties involved in the proceedings initially exchanged views in a legal discussion. Accordingly, the 36-year-old is said to have only gotten involved during the investigation when the evaluation of his cell phone had already begun. The man then brought the co-defendant into play and hopes for a leniency program.
In the event of a comprehensive confession, the public prosecutor offered the 36-year-old an eight to nine-year prison sentence using the leniency program, and the younger accused nine to ten years in prison. The defense lawyers wanted to discuss this with their clients in the coming days.
Pills were supposed to be smuggled into Saudi Arabia
The task of the accused is said to have been to hide the tablets in other goods in a warehouse rented in Lower Bavaria and to camouflage them, to bring them by truck to Hamburg or Bremerhaven and to ship them from there in the direction of Saudi Arabia. In the spring of 2021, however, the narcotics were seized by the police in the hall. The suspects were arrested.
Contacts in the highest circles
According to the public prosecutor’s office, they acted on behalf of a Lebanese organization. The process also draws attention to a major development that investigators are observing: Captagon production has been increasing massively for several years. Although destined primarily for the Gulf States, smuggling is increasingly going through Europe. Behind this are networks in Lebanon and Syria with the best contacts in the highest circles.
conflict is exploited
Experts have no doubt that followers of the Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad play a key role in this. “People who are very close to the regime are involved,” says Jihad Jasigi, editor-in-chief of the “Syria Report”. Captagon has been manufactured in Syria since the 2000s, initially on a smaller scale. But with the beginning of the civil war in 2011, the economy collapses. Warlords and armed groups are gaining influence, looking for revenue in the chaos of conflict and finding it in drug production.
New ingredient
German investigators also have information that the world’s largest Captagon production site is likely to be located in Syria today. The name is misleading though. Captagon originally came onto the German market as a drug in the 1960s, but is no longer legally produced. What is smuggled today under the name Captagon normally does not contain the original active ingredient fenetylline, but amphetamine, like the pills in Regensburg.
Billion dollar business across Europe
The production is comparatively simple. The production costs for a tablet are in the 10 cent range. Depending on the quality and market, it can be sold for up to 25 US dollars. So it’s a billion-dollar business that is of interest to Assad’s followers not least because the country is subject to international sanctions and the isolated economy is lying idle. Customs authorities in the Gulf are now keeping a closer eye on exports from Lebanon and Syria. Smuggling is therefore increasingly taking place via Europe in order to cover up the transport routes. Especially in the past two to three years, this has been observed more and more, according to German security circles.
Drugs hidden in furniture
The traces lead time and again to Germany, not only in the Regensburg case. Investigators from Recklinghausen in North Rhine-Westphalia arrested several people last year. They are said to have organized the smuggling of amphetamine tablets from Germany via the Romanian port of Constanta.
The drugs were hidden in furniture. In general, the smugglers are very resourceful when transporting the prohibited goods, says a German investigator. “The perpetrators go to a lot of trouble to hide the pills. There are no limits to your imagination.” In December, investigators in Lebanon found Captagon tablets squeezed into hollowed-out oranges. A defendant is said to have searched for camouflage goods for weeks to transport the tablets found in Regensburg. Including test delivery without drugs.
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