London - “Al-Quds Al-Arabi”: The New York Times, in a report prepared by Ben Hubbard and Huwaida Saad, dealt with the kingdom of drugs in Syria that arose amid the devastation of the civil war.
The newspaper said that those close to President Bashar al-Assad are producing and selling the banned substance “Captagon amphetamine,” which led to the emergence of a new drug state in the Mediterranean.
The newspaper added that this empire emerged from the ashes of the 10-year-old war and is run by close associates and relatives of Assad, and has grown and grown to become hundreds of billions of dollars, and has become the main source of Syria's legal exports. Captagon is the main product, and it is a widespread substance in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab countries.
The operations of the drug empire extend throughout Syria, including workshops that produce and wrap grains, where their nature is camouflaged for export, in addition to smuggling networks that transport them to foreign markets.
An investigation by The New York Times found that most of the production and distribution is supervised by the Fourth Division of the Syrian Army, an elite division in the regime's army led by Maher al-Assad, Bashar's brother, and considered one of the powerful in Syria. Businessmen who have ties to the government of the regime, as well as Lebanese Hezbollah, and other members of the extended family of the president of the regime are helping or working within the drug empire, as the family name “Al-Assad” gives them protection from illegal activities, according to the newspaper’s investigation, which reinforced its investigation with information from the forces. Imposing order and security in 10 countries, legal companies and a number of drug experts in a number of countries in the region and the world, and statements from current and former US officials.
The newspaper comments that the drug empire that emerged from the devastation of the civil war at a time when most of the Syrian people suffered from poverty, and members of the security forces and the army began to search for ways to obtain hard currency and circumvent US economic sanctions.
According to the data prepared by the newspaper on the Captagon trade worldwide, illegal activities now outpace the important materials that Syria exports abroad. The authorities of Greece, Saudi Arabia, Italy and other countries have confiscated large quantities of drugs worth hundreds of millions of dollars, most of which came from seaports controlled by the Syrian government. The value of some of the confiscated shipments was estimated at one billion dollars.
Last year, officials in Italy found 84 million pills hidden inside huge rolls of paper and iron engines. In March, officials in Malaysia discovered 94 million pills inside car tyres. Drug experts believe that these confiscations represent a small part of the drugs that were shipped, but they provide insight into the extent and size of the trade, which indicates that the trade has expanded significantly over the past years. The volume of Captagon confiscated this year amounted to 250 million pills, 18 times more than the materials confiscated in the past four years. What worries the region's governments is that the Syrian smuggling networks, which were set up to smuggle grain, have begun transporting the dangerous drug "dead crystal," security officials say.
They say that the main obstacle to confronting this trade is that the supporting country finds no reason to stop it. The newspaper quoted Joel Rayburn, the US envoy to Syria during the Donald Trump administration, as saying: “The idea of asking the Syrian government for cooperation is strange, because it is the one that actually exports drugs. They do not turn a blind eye while the drug cartels are doing their work.
The newspaper refers to the manner in which the drug state arose in Syria, as the narcotic substance is manufactured by a German pharmaceutical group and used as a stimulant to treat problems of concentration disorders and lack of sleep. In the eighties of the last century, the drug began to spread in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states as a way to obtain an energy boost, get rid of fear, stay up late at night during exams, work, parties, and drive long distances. And the grains were sealed with two crescents, so that they became known as “Abu Hilalin.”
After scientific researchers concluded that it leads to addiction, it was banned internationally at the end of the eighties, but the illegal production of Captagon continued in order to supply the Gulf market, including the Lebanese Bekaa region, which is the center of hashish production and under the control of Hezbollah, which is now considered Part of the Lebanese government. Although the substance “captagon” manufactured by pharmaceutical companies is contained, amphetamine phenethylene, which is the illegal substance, is usually called “captagon” and contains a mixture of amphetamine, caffeine and a number of other additives. Cheap copies of it are sold in Syria for less than a dollar, while the well-made material sells for 14 dollars in Saudi Arabia.
After the war broke out, drug dealers began selling the drug to combatants on both sides of the conflict to increase their boldness and courage. Syrian merchants working in the pharmaceutical industry and its related establishments began using and manufacturing abandoned pharmaceutical factories. Syria needed the main components of its industry: experts to mix medicines, factories to produce and hide materials, and an outlet on the Mediterranean Sea to transport them in the shipping lanes, and smuggling routes were opened to Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq.
With the continuation of the war, the sanctions targeted members of the circle close to Assad, and for this reason they began to invest in Captagon, in a way that they brought with them militia leaders, army officers, merchants whose businesses flourished during the war, and relatives of Assad. Laboratories that manufacture Captagon have spread in areas under Assad's control, as well as in areas controlled by Hezbollah near the border, outside the capital, Damascus, and around the port of Latakia. Most of these factories were small in iron containers and private houses, where workers mixed the ingredients with mixers and then pressed them into grains with simple machines, according to Syrians who visited these factories.
In order to prevent entry to these containers, the soldiers put signs on their doors that they are closed military areas. The grains are hidden in the bottoms of ship containers, milk, tea and soap containers, and crates of grapes, oranges and pomegranates ready for export. They are then smuggled overland to Jordan and Lebanon, where some of them are shipped through Beirut airport and ports. The bulk of it is shipped through the port of Latakia in Syria.
The security office in the Fourth Division, headed by General Ghassan Bilal, provides the necessary network for the smuggling regime. According to security officials and former Syrian officers, the bureau's forces protect many factories and facilitate the movement of drugs across the Syrian borders and ports. “The division’s presence in the area is dangerous,” said Col. Hassan al-Daqqa, director of the Anti-Narcotics Department for the Public Security Directorate in Jordan. Captagon factories are located in the areas controlled by the Fourth Division and provide them with protection.” Maher al-Assad and General Bilal refused to comment, as did the Syrian mission in Vienna or the Syrian Foreign Ministry. Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah denied any connection with Captagon.
Businessmen play a role in trade, and one of them near Damascus, Amer Khiti, a businessman, indicates his rise to the new class of businessmen during the war, according to former American and Syrian officials with knowledge of the drug trade. He was a humble livestock trader, then became a smuggler during the war, as he smuggled foodstuffs and goods between Damascus and opposition areas in its neighborhoods, with the support of the state, says activist Sami Adel, who came from the same town of Khiti.
As fighters were driven out of the capital's suburbs, he bought real estate and invested in the canning industry, which was used for smuggling. And there is Khader Taher, who used to sell poultry, and supervised the checkpoints set up by the Fourth Division to smuggle Captagon. Khiti did not answer the newspaper's questions, nor was she able to communicate with Taher through his companies that he owns.
The two men paid off the Syrian government by spending lavishly on banquets, huge banners, rallies and concerts in support of Bashar al-Assad's presidency this year. Khiti contributed to the reconstruction of a recruitment center and other government buildings damaged by the war, and won a seat last year in the Syrian parliament. In May, Assad awarded the Order of Merit to Taher for his efforts in serving the economy and financial management during the war. The United States imposed sanctions on Bashar al-Assad, Maher, General Bilal, Khaiti and Taher. She described Taher as the mediator of the Fourth Division, and his business provides “financial resources for the regime and its supporters.”
Captagon is still produced and smuggled through Lebanon. Noah Zaiter, a Lebanese drug lord who lives in Syria most of the time, links his trade between the two countries, according to security officials in the region and Syrians with knowledge of the drug trade. A Lebanese court this year sentenced him to life imprisonment with hard labor for drug-related offences. He said in a call to the newspaper that his trade is in cannabis, and he denied having anything to do with Captagon. He said, “I have not sent and will not send such a toxic substance to Saudi Arabia or anywhere else.” "I will not supply Captagon to my worst enemy," he added. Jihad Yaziji, editor of The Syria Report, a publication that tracks Syrian economic affairs, believes that Captagon has become the main source of hard currency in Syria, adding that the money that is obtained does not go to the economy and is “invested in the accounts of smugglers and warlords.”
Officials outside the Middle East don't know much about the substance. They don't recognize it when it's confiscated because smugglers change their packaging methods and use circuitous methods to hide their origin. Since 2015, authorities have found Captagon on the private plane of a Saudi prince, hidden in truck oil filters and tile-making machines, and placed in fruit export shipments or stuffed inside plastic potatoes placed with real potatoes.
The smugglers buried the drugs with coffee and spices to deceive the police dogs. They also hid them inside lead bars and giant boulders to prevent scanners from detecting them. The drugs were discovered in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, the ports of Egypt, Greece and Turkey, and at airports in France, Germany, Romania and Malaysia. Most of these countries are not considered an important market for drugs, but rather an attempt to deceive them to transfer them to the Gulf. And Saudi Arabia, the largest market for the substance, announced the discovery of six smuggling attempts, as it was found on tea or sewn with clothes. And Saudi Arabia announced that it would ban the import of pomegranates from Lebanon, after discovering quantities of drugs inside the grains of this fruit, which Lebanon exported.
The quantities of drugs discovered have increased since 2017, according to data prepared by the newspaper. The smuggled materials exceeded the volume of legal materials exported by Syria, most of which are agricultural. The value of the substance confiscated from Captagon last year amounted to 2.9 billion dollars, which is greater than the volume of Syrian exports, which is 860 million dollars. Regime officials could not catch the smugglers because the Syrian state does little for them.
The name attached to the confiscated shipment usually leads to a network of shell companies. Last year, the Italian authorities discovered a shipment of 84 million pills in the port of Salerno, the largest seizure of Captagon that came from Latakia. The name of the person who sent it was Bassel al-Sharqi bin Jamal, but the Italian authorities could not determine his true identity. As for the party to whom it is sent, it is “GPS Global Aviation Supply”, which is a company registered in Lugano, Switzerland, and has no office there. The newspaper was unable to communicate with her despite the repeated calls and letters.
The same problem faced the Greek investigators. In 2019, workers at the port of Piraeus discovered five tons of Captagon, valued at hundreds of millions of dollars. It was hidden inside fiberboard on its way to China. And he put on the boards the name “Kwik Kelik”, which may be a fictitious company. Officials found in the documents that the shipment was on its way to Shenzhen Xiangli Trade Limited. The documents mention Trieste V. Sihough, a Chinese logistics support company that denied any knowledge when contacted. “You are not the police,” she said, and hung up the phone.
There is one indication that the origin is from Syria, so his name is Muhammad Amer Al-Daqqaq, with a Syrian number, and when his WhatsApp account was found, he carried a picture of Maher Al-Assad, which means that he is a fan of him. The person who answered the call denied being Al-Daqaq, and said that he had obtained the number some time ago.
Jordan is at the forefront of the countries that stand on the frontline of the war against drugs. “Jordan is the gateway to the Gulf,” said Gen. Ahmed Sarhan, commander of the military unit on the border with Syria. Al-Sarhan and his men talked about smugglers' tricks to bring drugs into Jordan, which include transporting drugs through a number of sites or drones to transport them across the border and loading drugs on the backs of trained donkeys to cross without evidence. Sometimes smugglers stop at Syrian army checkpoints before approaching the border.
The drug trade excites Jordanian officials, due to the increase in quantities, and the volume of Captagon pills that were confiscated in Jordan doubled in 2020. Although Jordan is a crossing point for Saudi Arabia, one-fifth of the quantities are consumed in the Kingdom.