In the summer of 2020, the Italian police thwarted a huge drug deal that was on its way to European ports, after security forces in the Italian port of Salerno were able to seize three ships coming from the Syrian port of Latakia with a quantity of Captagon-based drug on board. It contains phenethylene – it weighs 14 tons, is estimated to be worth about one billion euros, and contains about 85 million small disks hidden inside a shipment of machine parts and industrial paper rolls.
Fingers were quickly pointed at the Syrian regime and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, but a few months after the incident, the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, “Hassan Nasrallah,” came out, denying the accusations against his party, criticizing the party’s targeting of “false news and Western propaganda,” as he put it. The party leader is satisfied with that, but explicitly said in his televised speech: “Our position on drugs of all kinds is clear. It is religiously forbidden to manufacture, sell, buy, smuggle and consume them.”
But that was not enough to stop suspicions. One year after Nasrallah denied his party’s responsibility for the Italy deal, the list of accusations leveled against the party and its Syrian allies expanded, as Captagon seizures around the world revealed at that time that there was billions of dollars worth of trade in this drug that roamed the world. Originating from Syria, the drug was first produced in the West in the 1960s for treatment, before it was banned due to its addictive properties.
Over the years, the Middle East, especially the Arab Gulf states, was flooded with Captagon tablets, known as “the cocaine of the poor”, and successive shipments of this drug were seized in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and Egypt from Lebanon and Syria, which became the most prominent countries in the manufacture and export of phenethylene in the region. The figures indicate that more than 250 million Captagon pills were seized globally in 2021, a number equivalent to 18 times the amount seized only four years ago.
The journey of Hezbollah and the Damascus regime with drugs
Although Nasrallah stated, in his denial that his party was behind the aforementioned Italian drug deal, that “any involvement in the drug trade is prohibited by religious scholars, even if the plan is to transfer it to the enemy,” the records of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that were lifted Confidentiality in 1994 confirmed (1) that the party’s activities in the field of drugs are rooted and extended, as it goes back to the legalization of some religious scholars associated with the party for that trade at the time if drugs were sold to the enemies of Islam in the context of the war against them.
Since the 1990s, then, the party has been involved in the drug trade and legalized it in theory, using its relations with well-established groups in this trade in the Lebanese Bekaa Valley, which it has long considered its main financial source. What is more, Hezbollah elements also established relations with drug gangs in Latin America, which have old economic ties to Lebanese capital, where the two parties later formed elaborate networks for drug smuggling and money laundering, which the party justified for itself in the end by financing operations and goals more important than harm. induced by drugs.
The Lebanese party’s interest in this trade increased after 2006. After the Israeli war incurred heavy financial consequences for it, it resorted to Tehran, which provided it with the necessary pharmaceutical equipment to manufacture a copy of Captagon, the drug that was originally intended to treat mental disorders. With the expansion of the military and financial commitments of the party, which has been economically besieged in recent years by US sanctions and the economic collapse in Lebanon, the organization has increased its reliance on drug smuggling to fund its operations that now include large swathes of Syria. Meanwhile, (2) the Syrian regime was not exempt from being involved in this trade. The Syrian army controlled Lebanon for years before withdrawing from it, and in that period, it enjoyed wide powers for a long time in the Lebanese Bekaa Valley, which is the main source of cannabis cultivation.
In any case, the mass production of narcotics moved into Syrian territory after 2011, as the regime initially needed to reward its local fighters who had brought them to fight by giving them Captagon. Then, after Hezbollah’s participation in the Syrian war starting in 2012, the party not only annexed vast areas across the border in the Syrian Qalamoun Mountains to grow cannabis and develop its industry, but also moved some manufacturing facilities into Syria to escape Lebanese and international legal prosecution, with the support of course from the government Syrian.
For a long time, Syria’s geographical location at the crossroads of the Middle East, Europe and Asia made the country a transit point for drugs coming from Europe, Turkey and Lebanon, on their way to Jordan, Iraq and the Gulf, but what Hezbollah did was transform Syria from a mere stopover into a production site. It was a major drug, providing Captagon producers in Syria with technical expertise and protection, which led to the increase in Syrian production of the most popular stimulant until it exceeded the production of Lebanon itself (3).
Under an international siege, the Assad regime has relied on drug smuggling as a lifeline that generates hundreds of millions of dollars annually (billions of dollars in some estimates), and provides funding for weapons and fighters for the war that has been going on for more than a decade now. As the report of the Center for Operational Analysis and Research, a research center focused on the situation in Syria, states: “Syria has become a drug state for two main types of concern: hashish and Captagon.” The report added that “in 2020, the market value of Syria’s Captagon exports amounted to no less than $3.46 billion. Although Captagon smuggling was previously a source of financing for anti-state armed groups, the restoration of those areas enabled the Assad regime and its allies to strengthen their role.” as beneficiaries (of them).”
The same numbers are confirmed in the report issued by the Center for Operations Analysis and Research (COAR), a Cyprus-based consulting company, which indicates that the Syrian regime has exported drugs worth at least $3.4 billion in 2020. The grains coming from the Syrian regime’s territory cost about $25 per pill in the Gulf countries, that is, more than 50 times its cost in the country of origin, which makes the drug a significant source of hard currency for the regime.
Saudi Arabia: Captagon Market
Captagon (or Abu Hilalin as some Saudi youth call it after the letters C engraved on its tablets, which resemble two crescents) is the drug of choice in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states in general. In recent years, (4) GCC countries have turned into the first destination for the drug market of Lebanese and Syrian origin, especially Captagon coming through land routes from Jordan and Lebanon, which prompted the Saudi authorities to engage in a major struggle to curb that wave and boom caused by the Syrian war and what followed. of events.
However, the last straw that broke the camel’s back, after which Riyadh decided to ban the import of fruits and vegetables from Lebanon, came last April, when more than 5 million Captagon pills were confiscated. The Saudi Interior Ministry said that “the ban is necessary because Lebanon has failed to stop drug smuggling, despite the kingdom’s many attempts to urge the relevant Lebanese authorities to do so, and to protect the kingdom’s citizens and residents.”
In this context, officials in the Kingdom see that targeting the country with drugs coming from Lebanon and Syria has two goals at the same time, political and financial. With the influential authorities in both countries in need of money, it is unlikely that the smuggling operations took place without the protection of powerful forces in Beirut and Damascus, but what observers agree on is that the Kingdom’s efforts to confront this aggravating trade, including the comprehensive ban, cannot fully achieve its goals. And the evidence is that the deals continued after the ban on the export of fruits and vegetables, which caused great damage to farmers in Lebanon, as smugglers quickly adapted to the ban, either by adopting new methods of camouflaging Captagon tablets, or by using entirely new smuggling routes.
The war on “Abu Hilalin”
“If you order a hundred million pills, within five days they will be packed. It does not take much time,” a Lebanese drug dealer who lives in the Lebanese Bekaa Valley told The National, boasting of the ease and speed of production of Captagon, which has become one of Lebanon’s most valuable exports. For profits in the midst of the country’s economic collapse. Attention is constantly directed to the Lebanese Bekaa Valley, the stronghold of cannabis cultivation in Lebanon, which has turned into the production and manufacture of Captagon, and has become a bridge, not only to Hezbollah’s influence across the Syrian-Lebanese border, but also to the drug trade in which Syrian producers have entered into partnerships with Lebanese smugglers.
This boom was reinforced by what Syria had previously possessed of experts in the field of medicine who played their part in the production of Captagon, in addition to the country’s factories that were dedicated to the manufacture of the drug, as well as easy access to shipping routes for goods across the Mediterranean to Turkey and Europe on the one hand, and to the Gulf by land from Side. It was impossible, therefore, for the two countries, entrapped by a severe economic crisis and a region devastated by the fires of war, to resist engaging in that trade which was facilitated by all geographical and technical factors, and fostered by the rich markets of the south and north.
As we mentioned earlier, production and manufacturing quickly moved from the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon to Syria itself, and (5) Lebanese drug lords also moved to Syria to escape the prosecution of the Lebanese authorities, who responded timidly to international pressure calling for legal measures to curb the flow of drugs. For example, “Noah Zuaiter” known as the “Lebanese drug lord” has moved mainly to Syria, after being sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor by a Lebanese military court.
Zuaiter’s experience presents a microcosm of the influence of drug men in Lebanon and Syria, as this trade is supported by influential officials in both countries. Drug trade, which means that corruption – and behind it the economic crisis and the weakness of the state – stands a strong obstacle to the fight against drug production and trade between Lebanon and Syria, and that the solution to the crisis is inseparable from the solution to the social, political and economic crises that afflicted the Levant region, and the flow of Captagon was only a chapter of its chapters.
In addition, behind the growth of the drug industry and trade in Syria are the influential people and relatives of the President of the Syrian regime, Bashar al-Assad, and they remain as long as al-Assad remains. An investigation by the New York Times reveals that this division is known to be led by Maher al-Assad, the brother of the Syrian president and one of the most powerful statesmen in Syria today.
There are therefore many obstacles to combating Captagon, as its industry and trade are supported by different levels of officials ranging from presidents to security officers, all of whom have an interest in flooding the markets with their goods. As for the parties wishing to curb that wheel, to protect their youth on the one hand, and to disrupt the economic wheel of Assad and his allies in Syria and Lebanon on the other hand, they are the Gulf states in the first place, then Turkey and the Western powers. They fear that this Captagon wave will end with the consolidation of the economic role of drugs in Syria and Lebanon – similar to what happened in Afghanistan previously – and that over time the two countries will shift towards exporting more dangerous types of drugs than Captagon. The Syrian network established to smuggle Captagon has already begun to transport more dangerous drugs, such as crystal meth.
While the Captagon trade adapts to new restrictions and obstacles, and gains sustainable economic effectiveness and impact in the midst of the economic crisis that has been afflicting the Levant for a decade, efforts to combat it are unlikely to succeed soon, as it is linked to the settlement of the Syrian conflict itself, and the political and economic crisis in Lebanon. As for the Western powers and international institutions, there is little they can do except to tighten the grip of control and punish the companies involved in the Captagon trade, until a comprehensive settlement looms on the horizon that uproots that trade before it becomes intractable, and before Syria becomes another Afghanistan.
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Sources
- Hezbollah operatives seen behind spike in drug trafficking, analysts say
- Syria has become a narco-state
- Insight – War turns Syria into major amphetamines producer, consumer
- Cutting Off Lebanon Won’t Stem the Captagon Trade
- On Syria’s Ruins, a Drug Empire Flourishes