Over 127 plastic bags filled with an addictive drug called Captagon lie ready for destruction after being seized by U.S. and Coalition partners in Southern Syria, May 31, 2018. Captagon is commonly known and used by ISIS terrorists, and informally referred to as the “jihadists’ drug”. CJTF-OIR is the global Coalition to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Christopher Brown)
Syria experienced a bloody civil war that killed 300,000 civilians, starting in 2011. With Syria’s economy destroyed by the civil war and weighed down by U.S. sanctions, Syria’s oppressive government has turned to drug trafficking to make money. A drug called Captagon now is now Syria’s principal product, and amounts to more than 95% of its exports — more than $5 billion per year. Syria has gotten hundreds of thousands of people in other countries addicted to this drug, many of them in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, which backed rebels in the Syrian civil war, is now being nicer to Syria’s government in hopes of getting it to stop sending so much Captagon to Saudi Arabia.
France24 reports that “Saudia Arabia offered to invest $4 billion in Syria in exchange for a curb in drug exports during” the Saudi Foreign Minister’s “visit to Damascus” in April 2023. Estimates of the revenue from Captagon range from “$5.7 billion” to “more than $10 billion.”
Captagon is a highly addictive amphetamine which is used throughout the Middle East, with 80% of the world’s supply produced in Syria. The Syrian regime is closely involved in the trade – multi-billion dollar shipments leave regime strongholds such as the Port of Latakia, and President Bashar al-Assad’s brother Maher al-Assad commands the unit of the Syrian Army facilitating the distribution and production of the drug.
Trade in the drug is a financial lifeline for the Assad regime – it is worth approximately 3 times the combined trade of the Mexican cartels. The production and trafficking of captagon enriches Assad’s inner circle, militias and warlords, at the expense of the Syrian people who continue to face crippling poverty and repression at the hands of the regime.
Since 2011, the Gulf region has seen a significant escalation in the scale and sophistication of drug trafficking. There has been a particular increase in the supply of Captagon, a codrug of amphetamine and theophylline, whose consumption threatens social peace. However, the issue extends beyond organized crime to affect politics. The Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad and its allies have leveraged Captagon trafficking as a means of exerting pressure on the Gulf states, notably Saudi Arabia, to reintegrate Syria into the Arab world and secure concessions that would allow the regime to reinforce its position after thirteen years of conflict….To secure the Assad regime’s cooperation, Saudi concessions would need to be substantial, addressing the regime’s critical need for financial resources, reconstruction aid, and political support against Western demands for regime change….
On April 23, 2022, a man from Qatif in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia poured gasoline in his house and set fire to it, killing four members of his family. The offender, who was in his twenties, carried out the crime while under the influence of Captagon. The incident was but one example of the ways the drug has damaged lives in the kingdom. Among the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia is the country most targeted by Captagon traffickers, because of its large market and extensive borders with Jordan and Iraq. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the largest quantities of Captagon seized between 2012 and 2021, around 67 percent, were in the kingdom, leading media outlets to dub it the drug capital of the Middle East.
Captagon was first manufactured in 1961 by a German company, Degussa Pharma Gruppe, as an alternative to amphetamine and methamphetamine…However, Captagon was later found to be highly addictive and detrimental to mental and physical health…which resulted in a worldwide ban of the drug. Despite the ban, an illicit version of the drug continued to be produced in Eastern Europe and later in the Arab world, becoming prominent during the conflict in Syria after 2011. Nicknamed “the drug of jihad” or “the poor man’s cocaine,” Captagon enhances focus and staves off sleep and hunger, partly explaining its popularity among combatants, who need to stay alert. However, it also has the potential to cause confusion and hallucinations, affecting impulse control and judgment.
While drug use in Saudi Arabia is not new, it never posed significant social problems until the influx of Captagon….Syria and Lebanon are the primary sources of Captagon shipments to the Gulf. Traffickers use both land and maritime transportation routes to export Captagon, sometimes employing itineraries through Europe. All kinds of techniques have been used to conceal the drug. For example, in March 2023 the Saudi Zakat, Tax, and Customs Authority intercepted 3.3 million tablets in three shipments—one hidden in truck tires at the Saudi Red Sea port of Duba, another concealed in a truck’s air tank at the same port, and a third discovered in a shipment of fruits and vegetables at the Haditha crossing. In April 2023, 12.7 million tablets were found in pomegranates at Jeddah port, followed by the discovery in May 2023 of 8.3 million tablets in Riyadh concealed in a shipment of coffee creams. In January 2024, the authorities discovered 841,000 tablets hidden in metal boxes in a truck at the Haditha crossing, and in March 2024 the authorities found 1 million tablets hidden in cantaloupes at Duba port. In 2015…a majority of the kingdom’s drug addicts were between twelve and twenty-two years old… students use Captagon to cope with exams, while laborers use it to increase their endurance. Some individuals use it recreationally, out of boredom, because of peer pressure, or just to experiment.
Before it became a narco-state, Syria exported primarily olive oil, nuts, calcium phosphates, cotton, and spice seeds.
