A Drug Empire Rises in Syria

An illegal drug industry run by powerful associates and relatives of President Bashar al-Assad has grown into a multibillion-dollar operation, eclipsing Syria’s legal exports and turning the country into the world’s newest narcostate, reports the New York Times. Its flagship product is “captagon” — an illegal and addictive amphetamine popular in Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, and its operations, which stretch across Syria, are overseen by the Fourth Armored Division of the Syrian Army, an elite unit commanded by Maher al-Assad, the president’s younger brother.

Illicit speed is now the country’s most valuable export, far surpassing its legal products, with authorities in Greece, Italy, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere seizing hundreds of millions of pills in hauls whose street value could exceed $1 billion. More than 250 million captagon pills have been seized across the globe so far this year, more than 18 times the amount captured just four years ago. The Syrian network built to smuggle captagon has begun to move more dangerous drugs, like crystal meth. Saudi Arabia, the largest market for captagon, has announced as many as six busts per month, with the drugs found in packets of tea and sewn into the linings of clothes. The number of pills seized has increased every year since 2017 and, in 2020, global captagon seizures had a street value of about $2.9 billion, more than triple Syria’s legal exports of $860 million.