Assad’s fall upends the Middle East’s largest drug empire
Live MintThe fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad overturned the most profitable drug-smuggling network in the Middle East, exposing the former regime’s role in manufacturing and trafficking pills that fueled war and social crises across the region. Captagon, a methamphetamine-like drug that has been produced for years in Syrian labs, helped the Assad regime amass huge wealth and offset the impact of punishing international sanctions, while also allowing allies such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia to profit from its trade. “This absolutely proves that the regime was systematically involved in captagon production and trafficking," said Caroline Rose, an expert on the captagon trade at the New Lines Institute, a Washington think tank. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist rebel group leading the blitz offensive that toppled Assad, has attacked the captagon trade as an example of the former regime’s moral and financial corruption. In a victory speech at Damascus’s Umayyad Mosque on Friday, HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani said Assad had turned Syria into “the largest captagon factory in the world.
History of this topic
What Assad’s fall has revealed about Syria’s trade in the stimulant drug Captagon
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What will happen to al-Assad’s Captagon empire now?
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Syria’s dark secret: captagon stockpiles found linked to al-Assad’s military
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Captagon: Video points to Assad regime’s involvement in large-scale trafficking of illicit drugs
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Captagon, the drug fueling the rise – and fall – of Syria’s war
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Iraqi police seize 250,000 Captagon pills at school building
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A little white pill, Captagon, gives Syria’s Assad a strong tool in winning over Arab states
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Hezbollah leader denies reports linking the Iran-backed group to Syria’s drug dealer
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US announces sanctions against Assad cousins over drug trade
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Syria seizes hummus bowls made out of crushed Captagon pills
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Iraqi police seize more than 6 million Captagon amphetamine pills
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