An old drug is back in the Arab world: captagon.
For years, it was used as a prescription antidepressant in the West, although it was later banned when its high addictive potential.
Until not long ago, it was denounced that its production was one of the sources of income of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, for which it was even called the “drug of terrorists”. ”.
Now, investigations assure that its large-scale production and distribution in the Persian Gulf and the Levant is a state issue.
“Our study showed that captagon has become the main source of income for the Syrian government,” Caroline Rose tells BBC Mundo , a researcher at the Newlines Institute for Policy and Strategy, a think tank based in Washington who recently published an exhaustive investigation into the production of the drug in Syria.
“Everything suggests that people close to (Syrian President) Bashar Al-Assad, including his younger brother, Maher al-Assad, who is the commander of the Army’s Fourth Armored Division (an elite unit), are behind this business that has become Syria’s main export product,” he adds.
The Syrian government has denied on numerous occasions being involved in the production of captagon and assures that the numerous reports and studies that indicate it are false.
“Syria plays an important role in supporting the efforts of the international community to combat crime in general, especially the fight against drug trafficking,” the country’s Ministry of the Interior wrote on Facebook last December.
The statement assured that “Syria continues to play an important role in supporting the international community to combat crime in general and drugs, in particular”.
The minister Syrian Interior Minister Muhammad al-Rahmoun told state media Athrpress in October 2020 that “Syria is a drug-free country”, but that its geographical location ” makes it a transit country”.
However, the study by the Newlines Institute for Policy and Strategy is not the only one that has pointed to the Syrian government.
Reports from the coast guards of various countries, including Italy and Jordan, and investigations by The New York Times and The Guardian, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCR) and the Center for Operational Analysis and Research (COAR) also point to Damascus.
“The lack of conventional economic activities has increased the relative attractiveness of drug speculation on an industrial scale, which has been largely captured and controlled by drug businessmen linked to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and allies regime foreigners,” COAR said last year.
With the Syrian economy in tatters after a decade of war and unable to recover from international sanctions, captagon has become an industry billionaire, according to research.
“The areas where captagon production is most pronounced are those controlled by the al-Assad regime and his close relatives,” says Ian Larson, analyst of the COAR.
“It is a circumstantial connection, but indicative”.
- “I fled from Syria and now I am afraid to cross paths in Europe with my torturers”
The earnings
According to Newlines Institute research, only in 2021 the illegal captagon market produced profits valued at US$5.700 million.
“We cannot to be certain of how much of this money is going into the hands of the Syrian government, but it could be argued that a significant part of this income is probably being diverted into the pockets of these people”, says Rose.
The researcher assures that after the war of more than 10 years and sanctions against the Syrian economy, the captagon has become “an alternative income stream for the state”, but also for non-state actors.
“Many entrepreneurs and members of the agricultural and development of Syria also seem to be involved, which is an alternative form of profit for an economy that is devastated, “he says.
From medicine to d forbidden roga
The captagon was synthesized for the first time in the decade of 1960 and was used throughout the world as an antidepressant that was also prescribed for other problems such as deficit disorder or narcolepsy.
“From being a substance that was sold by prescription, it became prohibited and then became an illicit substance widely spread in the Middle East. Now it has become one of the most defining and dominant illicit businesses in that region, particularly in the Levant and the Persian Gulf”, explains Rose.
According to the researcher, its popularity in that area of the world is due to the fact that its effects are not as negative as those of other drugs, but mainly due to two elements that range from politics to the characteristics of society or the economy:
- “In the Arab world, the taboos that exist on drugs are greater than in the West. As captagon was a legal and well-known medicine for a long time, this has meant that its popularity has not diminished”
- “It must also be taken into account that in many of the countries where it is consumed, the economic and political conditions have made it very difficult to live, and captagon is very attractive for those who need to work all day, escape from trauma or hunger, because of its effects and because it is very cheap”, notes Rose.
This has led to the substance being also known as the “poor man’s cocaine”.
And it is that the captagon causes the person who consumes it to feel productive. In addition, it suppresses hunger and sleep and gives a boost of energy, which has also made it popular among young people as a recreational drug.
“It must be taken into account that captagon has also evolved from its formula, based on amphetamine, to cover higher doses of amphetamine and on many occasions other harmful agents are also added, such as copper, zinc, quinine, pseudoephedrine and other substances”, explains the researcher.
The studies that led to its prohibition also showed that it could become a addictive substance and some research suggested that it could also lead to violent behavior, hypertension and cardiovascular problems.
“Captagon has multiple uses, for which has become a very interesting and fascinating substance that has multiple and different consumer profiles”, says Rose.
The Syrian market
Although captagon was consumed in the Arab world long before the arrival of the State Islamic or the war in Syria, its production in recent years has reached record levels.
An investigation of the end of 2021 of the American newspaper The New York Times showed that that year more than million pills of captagon, an amount 18 times greater than that seized four years ago.
Of according to Rose, the stats so far from 10176 suggest that captagon trafficking will be even higher.
“There is a large production of the drug, which involves not only the Syrian government, but also landowners, ranchers and businessmen from the Arab world responding to the demand for a growing market”, indicates the expert.
“But logically, doing this by individual or small group methods is not the same as when you are a State and put part of your forces at the service of the production and distribution of this substance, which basically puts it at an industrial level”, he adds.
Rose assures that his research, which carried out together with analyst Alexander Söderholm, showed that in recent years the ways in which the al-Assad government and the Syrian army have become involved in the production and distribution of captagon have become more sophisticated.
The Newline Institute report indicates that the Syrian government has been involved in this business from the production to the distribution of the substance.
“We found that there are numerous places where it is produced that are associated with the Syrian army, but the Syrian authorities have also facilitated the production of captagon with laboratories and factories p small, medium and, sometimes, on a large scale”, he points out.
“And then, of course, with the transport of these drugs to key state-owned or sometimes unofficial ports along the Syrian or Lebanese coast and along border points. It is such a complex and dynamic network that makes Syria probably the most modern of the narco-states, at least for the time in which it has been consolidated as such”, he comments.
A valued shipment of captagon in US$ millions was seized at a Greek port in 700.
The ship had started its journey in the Syrian port of Latakia, under the control of the Syrian government, and the drug was hidden under coffee, spices and sawdust. An OCCRP investigation (Corruption and Organized Crime Reporting Project) pointed out that the owner of the ship was Taher Al-Kayali, a man sanctioned by the Italian authorities and allegedly related to Mudar al-Assad, a cousin of the Syrian president.
The Syrian Ministry of the Interior, for its part, has affirmed that “they make the maximum efforts to confront drug traffickers and promoters, and to confront and repress this phenomenon by pursuing drug smuggling and trafficking networks and seizing narcotic substances”.
A new source of income
The Newsline Institute report points out that drugs have been a hole through which to obtain money in the great wall of sanctions that Syria is experiencing as a result of the war of more than years.
“The Syrian regime has found in the captagon a loophole to counteract and undermine the effects of these sanctions and of the crisis, but base those that affect individual members of the government, their affiliates and their allies”, he points out.
Since captagon has become a very profitable and very popular substance in both the Levant and the Persian Gulf and with the ability to reach new destination markets, the investigation signs which it is likely that even the end of the war in Syria will not be able to put an end to its large-scale production .
At least not while al-Assad and his family remain in power.
“We project that this trade will continue to expand over time. Of course, this presents not only a challenge for law enforcement at the regional level, but also a challenge for human security, since many people will continue to consume this drug without regulation or supervision, and even more so when we have seen that its formula is being altered”, says Rose.
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