It was only after the fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad last month that the extent of Captagon’s spread across the Middle East and Europe came to light. A “synthesis of fenethylline,” Captagon is an “amphetamine-type stimulant” in tablet form that was developed in 1961 by the German pharmaceutical company Degussa. It gained popularity in the Middle East and had been “legally prescribed” for the better part of two decades. However, by the 1980s, in an unprecedented move, Degussa requested that the drug be regulated due to “its highly addictive nature and dangerous side effects.” In 1986, the World Health Organization and the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs responded by designating Captagon as a controlled substance.
A “synthesis of fenethylline,” Captagon is an “amphetamine-type stimulant” in tablet form that was developed in 1961 by the German pharmaceutical company Degussa.
By the 1980s, production of Captagon had shifted to communist Bulgaria, and a “a parallel black market” of “counterfeit Captagon tablets” had already developed, primarily in the Middle East. The counterfeit drug’s production was “protected and facilitated” by Bulgaria’s state security apparatus working in league with Lebanese drug traffickers. “The revenues provided the communist government with a crucial source of foreign currency during its final years.” In the early 2000s, Bulgaria cracked down on production of the drug as part of a bid to join the EU. Captagon production then “migrated” to Lebanon under Hezbollah’s control.
In 2011, as Syria descended into civil war, the Assad regime’s revenue was “drying up” under “international isolation and crushing sanctions.” The regime needed “a new source of income” to stave off economic ruin, and “Captagon provided the perfect solution.” In a “deliberate strategy by the Assad regime,” Syria used “the technical expertise and equipment” of the country’s established pharmaceutical industry to produce Captagon, and in so doing was transformed into a “pharmaceutical narco-state.” Syria’s chemical sector obtained the precursor chemicals necessary to manufacture Captagon “under the guise of legitimate industrial use,” while Assad’s state apparatus protected its trade.
In 2017-2018, Russia and Iran helped Assad consolidate control over much of Syria, enabling the regime to industrialize the Captagon trade. Documented evidence revealed “a sophisticated system that integrated Captagon production into state and military structures.” An elite division of the Syrian military “became the primary overseer of both production and distribution,” while a network of “state-owned companies provided cover for smuggling operations.” By 2024, “global Captagon trade was worth approximately $10 billion annually,” with the regime pocketing some $2.4-2.5 billion of the take.
Factories seized from legitimate owners were converted into Captagon production facilities that “operated 24/7” with pill presses “capable of producing thousands of tablets per hour.” Front companies imported precursor chemicals via “the regime’s control of customs and ports.” Each facility’s testing laboratory ensured “quality control” in an effort to build “brand reliability in the illegal drug market.” Captagon pills were smuggled in a dizzying array of concealment methods in shipments worth billions of dollars. Shipments as varied as industrial-sized gears to modified surface-to-air missiles and drones were used, thereby concealing the regime’s ability to smuggle “enormous quantities through official channels” and move Captagon across borders.
An elite division of the Syrian military “became the primary overseer of both production and distribution,” while a network of “state-owned companies provided cover for smuggling operations.”
The main smuggling land routes reached Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states through Jordan and Iraq. “The regime also developed more complex routes through Europe to disguise the origin of shipments.” Military officers, in coordination with Hezbollah’s control of the Syria-Lebanese border routes, developed a sophisticated smuggling network to traffic Captagon. Assad family members operated Captagon factories through corporate entities to provide cover for drug operations. “Government functions were coopted into the drug trade,” with businesses run by prominent Syrian politicians who facilitated drug production and smuggling.
Captagon’s human and economic toll also created diplomatic challenges. “The regime didn’t just profit from the trade – it used it as a powerful diplomatic tool” by applying pressure when necessary, or offering concessions, to neighboring countries. By “controlling the flow” of the drug, Assad achieved political goals, particularly with the regime’s “readmission to the Arab League in 2023,” following a false promise to crack down on drug trafficking. “Syria’s neighbors found themselves in a difficult position: they could either engage with Assad’s regime in hopes of curbing the drug trade, or maintain their isolation of Damascus and watch the flood of pills continue.”
Jordan found itself “on the front lines of this crisis.” In 2022, in an effort to stop cross-border smuggling, Jordan engaged in a “low-intensity border war” with militant traffickers. As of 2024, Jordan’s northern border had been transformed into a militarized zone with smugglers developing sophisticated methods to evade detection. In 2021, Lebanon, already suffering from a severe financial crisis, was dealt an economic blow when its agricultural imports were banned from entry to Saudi Arabia after the kingdom’s discovery of smuggled Captagon in a shipment of fruits and vegetables.
Saudi Arabia, “the largest market” for Captagon, “catches only about 20 percent of trafficked drugs.” Its users span social classes, and a majority of addicted Saudis are “between 12 and 22 years old.” In 2023, the Saudi interior minister pledged a crackdown on the drug, but “official seizures represent only the tip of the iceberg.” In a sign of the drug trade’s ability “to corrupt institutions across the region,” last October Saudi Arabia arrested ministry officials and government employees for their roles in facilitating Captagon smuggling.
The dilemma for Syria’s new government will be “providing alternative economic opportunities” for the thousands who were employed in the Captagon industry under Assad.
Syria’s new authorities since the fall of the Assad regime have pledged to dismantle Syria’s Captagon trade. Despite the pronouncement, experts at the New Lines Institute caution that Syria’s Captagon industry, with its “smuggling routes and criminal connections,” will not disappear. Iraq, positioned “at the crossroads of regional smuggling routes,” is “particularly vulnerable to becoming the next central hub of Captagon production.” Between 2017 and 2021, addiction rates in Lebanon and Iraq doubled, with crystal meth surfacing as “a potential replacement.” In 2023 alone, Iraqi authorities confiscated “more than 4.1 tons of [Captagon] tablets.”
The dilemma for Syria’s new government will be “providing alternative economic opportunities” for the thousands who were employed in the Captagon industry under Assad. U.S. Congressional Representative French Hill, who sponsored the Captagon Act, “sees Assad’s fall as a validation of the sanctions strategy.” The international community will still have to grapple with the fact that “sanctions alone may have unintended consequences.”
The second-order effects of “excessive sanctions” on Syria’s new government “could inadvertently push people back toward the drug trade out of economic necessity.” The “technical expertise” may migrate to new production hubs in countries beyond Iraq, such as “Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, and even some European nations.” The Assad regime developed an entire system of “methods and trafficking routes” for other criminal networks to follow as a “blueprint.” Syria’s system set it apart from “traditional drug cartels. Where criminal organizations must work around state power, the Syrian Captagon trade worked through it.”
Syria’s system set it apart from “traditional drug cartels. Where criminal organizations must work around state power, the Syrian Captagon trade worked through it.”
Assad’s Captagon “empire” presents policymakers with some difficult lessons. First, “traditional drug enforcement strategies may be insufficient in dealing with state-sponsored trafficking.” Second, sanctions may “push states toward illegal enterprises as alternative revenue sources.” Such enterprises will require the international community to develop more “nuanced tools” to deal with those that opt for a narco-state strategy as a means of survival. And third, “the lines between legitimate pharmaceutical production and illegal drug manufacturing can blur,” as was the case under the Assad regime.
“In just over a decade, Syria went from having a legitimate pharmaceutical industry to becoming the world’s largest producer of illegal amphetamines.” Unless the “underlying economic conditions” that spawned the drug trade can be addressed, Syria remains “a cautionary tale that demonstrates how the combination of state power, economic desperation, and pharmaceutical expertise can create one of the most sophisticated drug trafficking operations in history.”
