The drug is hidden in dummy vegetables or fruits, in tea packs, truck tires or parquet wood deliveries. Captagon, a highly addictive stimulant, is flooding the illegal market in the Arab Gulf states. Again and again, the customs authorities in Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates seize millions of tablets. And again and again the trail leads to Syria.

Christoph Ehrhardt

Correspondent for the Arab countries based in Beirut.

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The rump state ruled by Bashar al-Assad has long since degenerated into a narco-state. Syria is not only a hub for the smuggling of narcotics, but also a production site for Captagon. In the United States, the "Captagon Act" was launched last year, describing the Captagon trade as a "transnational security threat" and linking it to the regime. According to information from intelligence agencies, drug investigators or non-governmental experts on Syria or international drug trafficking, the closest circle of the Damascus power cartel is involved in this illegal business. Maher al-Assad, a brother of the ruler who commands the notorious 4th Division, is mentioned again and again.

It's a billion-dollar business. According to diplomats and Syrian economists, Captagon's revenues, whether it are tolls from smugglers or the proceeds of production, are a vital source of income for the Assad regime and its clique. During the Trump presidency, there had been considerations in Washington to get to grips with Damascus with an international coalition against the Captagon trade.

Now drug smuggling has become a political trump card for Assad. The fact that Damascus was readmitted to the Arab League on Sunday also has to do with the Syrian Captagon production. After all, the target states of the drugs in the Gulf and the neighbors hope that Assad will show concessions if they lift his isolation. When the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and Syria recently met in Amman to discuss Syrian rehabilitation, the drug problem was also discussed. In a subsequent statement, it said Syria would set up working groups with its neighbors Iraq and Jordan to identify the source of the drug and make it dry up.

The source is known to drug investigators

However, the source of the problem is well known to the Jordanian and Iraqi authorities. Senior officers of the Iraqi drug investigation department name the regime in Damascus as the indisputable prime suspect. On Monday, several sources reported suspected Jordanian airstrikes on a notorious drug godfather in southern Syria who is said to have links to militias loyal to Assad and Iran. It was promptly speculated that it could be a first pawn sacrifice. However, it is questionable whether the region's rulers can expect much concession from Assad, who is well versed in delaying changes in behavior with maneuvers or pretexts, if necessary for years.

And even if Assad wanted to, he would probably have great difficulty cracking down on a deal involving powerful allies – most notably the Lebanese Shiite organization Hezbollah. According to non-public investigations for Western governments based on a broad network in Syria, Hezbollah, controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, dominates drug smuggling in southern Syria, which says more than 120 groups are involved. A report from two years ago said that it was primarily colluding with Syrian military intelligence, as well as with the 4th Division, which had its own Captagon kitchens in Syria.

The activities of the Assad cartel have long been occupying European drug investigators. The pills are so cheap to produce that even larger finds by foreign security authorities are easy to cope with. In Salerno, Italy, investigators found about 2020 tons of Captagon pills from Syria in the summer of 14 with a market value of about one billion dollars – which was slightly less than half of the official Syrian state budget of 2021.