SYRIA’S CAPTAGON TRADE HIT HARD AS HEZBOLLAH-ISRAEL HOSTILITIES INTENSIFY

Thu 21 November 2024:

Syria’s reliance on Captagon smuggling faces new challenges as the ongoing conflict with Hezbollah threatens to undermine critical revenues for the Assad regime

Syria’s illegal drug trade, a critical economic pillar for President Bashar Assad’s regime, is under threat as the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah disrupts the production and smuggling of Captagon, an illicit stimulant wildly popular across the Middle East. The weakening of Hezbollah, a key ally and facilitator in the drug industry, could lead to significant economic repercussions for the Syrian government.

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Captagon was originally developed in the 1960s and often called the “poor man’s cocaine”. By the 2000s, production had largely moved to the Middle East, where the drug’s quality varies almost as much as its customer base. In some of the more affluent regions of the region, Captagon is used by young people to add an illicit thrill to a weekend’s evening.

Captagon, a brand name for the synthetic stimulant fenethylline, has become a major source of revenue for Syria. The country is currently the world’s largest producer of Captagon. Drugs of all kinds have become the most important economic resource for the Syrian regime and Hezbollah over the past 10 years

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Sanctions and Key Figures in the Drug Trade

In March of last year, the UK, the US, and the European Union imposed sanctions on individuals suspected of involvement in the Captagon trade, including two of Assad’s cousins. The Syrian regime, along with Hezbollah—the Lebanese group closely intertwined with the regime—is believed to rely on drug sales to fund military actions.

According to the UK, Assad earns around $60 billion annually from drug revenue. During the announcement of its sanctions, the UK asserted that the Syrian regime “plays a central role in the drug trade, with shipments worth billions of dollars leaving regime-controlled strongholds like the port of Latakia.”

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The war “has hit the regime tremendously, not simply directly as a result of the fighting and destruction, but also via sanctions and restrictions on dealing with the regime internationally”, said HA Hellyer, a Middle East security expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Royal United Services Institute.

“The Iranians and Russians have tried to ameliorate, but with limited success, and that’s impacted the regime generally as well as [al-]Assad’s clan in particular.”

The 4th Armored Division and Hezbollah’s Involvement

The drug trade in Syria is overseen by high-ranking officials and military units, notably the 4th Armored Division led by Maher Assad, the president’s brother, and his deputy Ghassan Bilal. Both have been implicated in facilitating drug production and smuggling.

In 2021, during the trial of Hassan Muhammad Daqou, a Syrian-Lebanese drug trafficker known as the “King of Captagon,” evidence emerged of conversations between Daqou and Bilal discussing smuggling drugs across the Syria-Lebanon border.

Syria is a central node in the regional Captagon trade, with Caroline Rose, a director of the New Lines Institute’s Captagon Trade Project, explaining how pills are trafficked by units of the military’s Fourth Armoured Division from locations such as Deraa and Sweida in the south of the country overland to Iraq, or trafficked by the government’s allies, Hezbollah, into Lebanon.

CAPTAGON, THE DRUG FUELING THE RISE – AND FALL – OF SYRIA’S WAR

While Hezbollah has denied involvement in the Captagon trade, there is growing evidence that the drug’s reach is expanding. In December, Jordanian forces exchanged fire with Syrian Captagon smugglers attempting to take advantage of heavy fog to rush the border, the second time in a single week.

“Globally, the Captagon trade is worth around $10bn. Of that, roughly $2.4bn went directly to the Syrian regime last year,” Rose said. “Little or nothing went to restructuring or the needs of the Syrian people.”

“We know that Assad is close to [Libyan renegade general] Khalifa Haftar, so there’s a lot of chat about the al-Assad regime using eastern Libya as a base. We’re also seeing a growing number of Captagon captures in countries across the coup belt,” Rose said, referring to the string of countries spanning Africa from Guinea to Sudan.

JORDAN ARMY KILLS DRUG RUNNERS AT SYRIA BORDER AMID SOARING CAPTAGON TRADE

Last May, Syria was readmitted to the Arab League, going some way to rehabilitating the al-Assad regime, which had previously been shunned by most of the region for its years-long war against the country’s opposition, and the hundreds of thousands killed as a result.

“Israel’s war on Gaza and the resulting escalation within the region will have only impressed upon those regional powers the need not to escalate matters with the [al-]Assad regime,” Hellyer said.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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