Bashir al-Assad’s lucrative ‘jihad drug’ empire brought billions of pounds a year into the coffers of his Syrian regime.
But the days of flooding the streets of the Middle East with Captagon, dubbed the ‘poor man’s cocaine’, may finally be at an end with the collapse of Assad’s brutal dictatorship.
Captagon has been both a lucrative export and a tool of warfare for Assad, with profits flowing directly into the pockets of his family and military.
The pill, which costs pennies to produce and sells for around $20 (£15), secretly netted the Assad regime three times more money than all of Mexico‘s cartels, estimates suggests.
But production of Captagon – which also goes by the name Fenethylline – has reportedly ground to a near halt after the Assad clan fled to Russia and Islamist rebels overran the main Captagon factories in Syria‘s coastal areas.
‘It is at least 90 per cent down,’ one European official who toured the Syrian-Jordan border told UAE-based newspaper The National. ‘What is left are small, scattered workshops and small players on the border.’
A Jordanian source corroborated the significant drop in illicit trade, with members of cartels linked to the defunct administration abandoning production.
However, Nicholas Krohley, a security analyst and founder of FrontLine Advisory, said the pause in drug flow may not last forever.
Bashir al-Assad’s lucrative ‘jihad drug’ empire brought billions of pounds a year into the coffers of his Syrian regime – (pictured: al-Assad speaking during an interview with AFP at the presidential palace in Damascus)
Captagon has been both a lucrative export and a tool of warfare for Assad, with profits flowing directly into the pockets of his family and military
Pictured: Fighters from the Islamic State group parade in a commandeered Iraqi security forces armored vehicle in the northern city of Mosul in 2014
He expects that Iraqi militias aligned with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will take advantage of the vacuum and kickstart a Captagon ‘boom’.
‘The IRGC needs that revenue and the Levant is now more or less cut off,’ Mr Krohley said, adding that Captagon could become a ‘means to generate revenue, provide services and compete for influence’.
Middle-Eastern intelligence suggests Captagon is still made in small compounds in Lebanon, with the help of Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Under Assad’s 24-years of terror, Syrians often faced huge crackdowns for alleged drug use where users were often handed hefty jail sentences.
Yet in 2021, the Syrian government was estimated to have made $5billion (£4billion) from the sale of Captagon.
A codrug of amphetamine and theophylline, Captagon was originally sold as a treatment for ADHD, narcolepsy and depression when it was first developed by a German pharmaceutical firm Degussa AG in 1961.
But junkies found the tablet was a cheap and quick way to get bursts of energy, alertness and sometimes a sense of euphoria.
Captagon is seen as the substance of choice for combatants, such as Islamic State terrorists, who value its ability to ward off tiredness and make them feel impervious to bullets.
Two people hug during a demonstration celebrating the fall of the Bashar Al-Assad regime outside the Syrian embassy in Madrid, Spain
People kick a poster depicting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after Syria’s army command notified officers that al-Assad’s 24-year rule has ended
People celebrate at Umayyad Square in Damascus on December 8, 2024, as rebel soldiers declare that they have taken the capital
Bashar al-Assad (L) with his wife Asma al-Assad arrive at New Delhi International airport, India, 17 June 2008
Israeli media claimed that Hamas fighters consumed Captagon right before they carried out the October 7 massacre, in which they killed 1,200 people and kidnapped a total of 251.
Captagon has been banned in most countries since 1986 after it was blacklisted by the United Nations due to its addictive properties.
Unfortunately, the UN ruling failed to dissuade Assad, who helped bolster the sale and distribution of Captagon as a means for political and economic survival, effectively turning Syria into a narco state.
An investigation by The New York Times revealed that much of Syria’s production and distribution of the drug was supervised by the Fourth Armoured Division – nicknamed the ‘Captagon Division’ – of the Syrian Arab Army.
The Brigade also played a significant role in bringing in raw materials from the likes of Iraq to the Captagon manufacturing centres.
Overseeing this complex operation was none other than the Syrian dictator’s brother, Maher al-Assad.
Syria is now the Captagon capital of the world, accounting for 80 per cent of the drug’s global supply. The global market for the drug is worth approximately $57billion (£45billion).
People sit on a tank as they gather at Umayyad Square in Damascus on December 8, 2024
A person tears apart a picture of Bashar Al-Assad during a demonstration celebrating the fall of his regime outside the Syrian embassy in Madrid, Spain
Syrian people living in London gather at the Trafalgar Square to celebrate as sixty-one years of Baath Party rule in Syria collapses
Gulf States have long seen Captagon as a scourge on their countries, with authorities in Kuwait and Qatar noting prevalent use among younger, more affluent citizens.
Saudi Arabia was responsible for two-thirds of global Captagon seizures between 2012 and 2021, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
As a result, many countries have been forced to spend considerable resources cracking down on Syrian smuggling operations.
Jordan intercepted 65 million Captagon tablets in 2022 alone, many of which were concealed in everyday products such as fruit and machinery.
The substance has even made its way to European soil. A 2020 seizure of 84 million counterfeit Captagon at the Italian port of Salerno was estimated to be worth €1billion (£825million).
Last year, the UK Government imposed sanctions on individuals responsible for the drug trade ‘fuelling Assad’s war machine’, including businessmen and relatives of the Syrian president.
Men gesture as people gather at Oranienplatz square, after Syrian rebels announced that they have ousted President Bashar al-Assad, in Berlin, Germany December 8, 2024
A customs officer displays Captagon pills, part of the 789 kilograms (1739 pounds) of confiscated drugs, before its incineration in Sofia, 12, 2007
Tory MP Alicia Kearns, who is now shadow foreign minister, called for further action to be taken at the time to stop Captagon from ‘infecting the UK’ through ‘significant trafficking networks’.
Despite its lucrativeness, Assad began stepping away incrementally from the trade in the years in a bid to rebuild his fractured relationships with neighbouring states.
Assad reportedly gave Jordan consent to kill Merhi al-Ramthan, who was described by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights as ‘the most prominent drug trafficker in the region’, in Syria last year.
He also allowed a Captagon warehouse near the Jordan border to be destroyed in an airstrike.
The attacks came just a day before Syria was formally readmitted to the Arab League, which it was kicked out of in 2011 over Assad’s brutal crackdown on protesters in the leadup to the Civil War.
Saud Al-Sharafat, a former brigadier general of Jordan’s intelligence service, told The Associated Press: ‘Assad gave assurances that he would stop the regime from supporting and protecting smuggling networks.’
Nevertheless, for all the money Assad was netting, he simply could not stop power from slipping out of his hands.
