Assad regime in Syria and its backers from Hezbollah are involved in drug trafficking to supply the Middle East market and run into Europe. The scope and geography of amphetamine drug supplies have been observed to expand for the last year.
Organized crime syndicates in Europe further this process, acting as wholesale distributors for such supplies.
On July 1, Italian police have discovered 14 tonnes of the drug Captagon hidden on container ships in the port of Salerno. A street value of drugs is about 1 billion euros ($1.6 billion).
Captagon, a brand name for the amphetamine drug fenethylline hydrochloride, with Arabic street name of Abu Hilalain.
Originally West German pharmaceutical company Degussa AG introduced fenethylline in 1961, with the brand name of “Captagon,” as a treatment for children diagnosed with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Later, it was used as a treatment for conditions like narcolepsy, depression. In 1981, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), along with many other countries, banned the drug because of studies suggesting fenethylline’s high potential for addiction, abuse, and adverse health effects. As a result, Captagon has been banned in most countries since the 1980s. Although the ban on fenethylline ended the official Captagon brand, the name stuck as a slang in black market drug circles.
Historically, hubs of Captagon production have been centered in Eastern Europe (Bulgaria), Turkey, and Lebanon.
On April 24, 2017, Bulgarian law enforcement authorities seized approximately 120 kilograms of the precursor chemical alpha-phenylacetoacetonitrile at a laboratory in Sofia, Bulgaria. The lab was established for the purpose of producing Captagon pills to supply consumer markets in the Middle East. This seizure confirmed previous Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reporting compiled over 2016, which suggested the production of Captagon was reemerging in Bulgaria.
Prior to the civil war, Syria had a significant pharmaceutical industry that supplied the region, and there is evidence that since the advent of the war, there has been an increase in production of Captagon inside Syria. According to the Guardian, production of the drug in the Bekaa valley fell 90 percent between 2011 and 2013, “with the decline largely attributed to production inside Syria.
90% of Captagon production previously concentrated also in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, the former center of Captagon production. Available indicators suggested that Hezbollah was most deeply involved with, and to a degree, dependent on Captagon for its funding, Hezbollah likely produced the drug directly, and that Hezbollah’s highest leadership sanctioned the fundraising strategy with very probable backing from Iran. However after starting the war in Syria the new Captagon capital of the world moved to Syria. As of now, Captagon is produced almost exclusively in Syria. Syria provides an optimal logistical environment for transnational organized drug production.
Consumption
The vast majority of Captagon consumption takes place in the wealthy Arab Gulf states. United Nations World Drug Reports have named Saudi Arabia as the leading country for amphetamine seizures since 2011.
A shipment of approximately two tons of Captagon was found aboard an Abdel Mohsen bin Walid bin ʿAbdel ʿAziz Saudi Prince’s private plane in Beirut. Demographically, the average Captagon user in Saudi Arabia is a male in his twenties or thirties.
It is undeniable that individual fighters in Syria have used Captagon as a battle enhancement. In interviews and discussions, there is no mention of Hezbollah fighters using Captagon.
However, Hezbollah’s spiritual authorities explicitly prohibited providing the drug to other Shia Muslims.
Outside of the Middle East, Captagon is virtually unheard of.
Like other amphetamines, its use increases energy and euphoria for a long time while decreasing the need for sleep and lowering inhibitions. In cases of overdose, it causes psychosis, paranoia, violent aggression, and possibly death. Many Syrian fighters are using the drug to fight for longer periods of time with increased energy and a decreased fear of death.
For years, Captagon has been know as the “drug of the Jihad” as it has often been found in militant hideouts.
But Captagon does not appear to be able to deliver superhuman properties.
According to Carl Hart, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia who is an expert on drug abuse, “The people who think they’re feeling this way must have been told they’re taking Superman pills. So there could be a placebo effect going on. A number of observers have pointed out that if Captagon did, in fact, endow the user with superhuman strength, the U.S. military would no doubt be dispensing the pills to its own special operators. But even if Captagon simply provides energy and greater focus, there would be good reason for Islamic State fighters to take it—and if the myth that the drug makes you invincible takes hold, so much the better for them. If the placebo effect has the power to activate the “brain’s inner pharmacy,”11 then Captagon may end up providing courage, after all.
Pills marketed as Captagon can contain almost any chemical compound.
Today all drugs found in round, off-white pills with two letter C’s on them are counted as Captagon (even if later shown to be methamphetamines or other non-fenethylline substances). Many black market Captagon pills are drug cocktails marketed for different effects, sometimes containing mixtures of Viagra or heroin in addition to their amphetamine stimulant. That way, there is a market today for a drug featuring a characteristic appearance (sign), however, various properties and composition. Samples from 124 batches seized in Jordan, 2005 were analyzed by means of gas chromatograph–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). The analysis demonstrates the presence of amphetamine, caffeine and several other substances, besides, the absence of fenethylline.
Captagon is inexpensive and easy to produce using mostly common ingredients such as pseudo-ephedrine. The market price balanced from $ 1,5 to 10 for a pill depending on the quality and manufacturer.
Up until the Syrian civil war began in 2011, Bulgaria and other Balkan nations were the main source of counterfeit Captagon pills.
“The conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic appears to have had an impact as various factions that were seeking access to funds through involvement in the illicit drug trade had an incentive to become active in the production of ‘captagon’.
Instability in the region helped drive the manufacture and trafficking of the drug, as it created a lack of control over illicit drug manufacturing, and poor monitoring of the clandestine laboratories where it was being made. All Syrian war factions including the Assad government have been accused of Captagon trafficking.
Thereafter, it is doubtful whether the shipment was intended for ISIS funding, as the Italian police claims.
The terror group, which has been weakened significantly in Syria, would haven’t been able to produce the drug in such large quantities, let alone smuggle it into Europe.
There is a large market for counterfeit Captagon pills across the Middle East, but the biggest destinations for the drugs are Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states like the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain. However, the shipment arrested in Salerno was unlikely destined for the Middle East market. It could be intended for Libya, where the fighting and the militants who took part in Syria’s war encourage demand for this drug. The company that had rented containers, published a map of operations on its website, indicating the ports of Libya.
However, the question arises about the purpose of sending the shipment through the Italian port, where the level of inspection and detection risks are higher than in Libyan ports.
Usually the illegal trafficking passes through the Italian transshipment hub of Gioia Tauro, the largest port in Italy for container throughput, but also the main entry point for Europe’s cocaine: 80% of which comes from Colombia via Gioia Tauro docks. The port of Gioia Tauro is notoriously under the control of the Calabrian organized crime group ’Ndrangheta. In November 2017, the Italian La Stampa reported the interception of a massive hoard of drugs in the southern port of Gioia Tauro which investigators suspect was part of a trafficking ring used by ISIS to finance terrorist activities. However, the port of Salerno is controlled by another group – Camorra. Thus, Captagon could have been delivered in transit and paid for by Camorra for further supply to third countries.
Despite the facts of Сaptagon supplies to Europe, those were mostly transit deliveries, sent further to other regions where these drugs are in great demand.
The batch in Salerno was unlikely intended for further shipment to Germany or France, where lots of immigrants from the Middle East live.
This requires a distribution network within these countries, specifically covering emigrants. Hezbollah that has been active in Germany over the past 10 years could have provided such network, but there is no data on similar activities of this organization in France.
The suggestion is that the lockdowns may have hampered the production of amphetamines in Europe, and local traffickers have had to get the drugs sent over from Syria, where manufacturers have presumably been able to continue producing drugs undisturbed.
But Captagon is a little-known drug in Europe, and its market promotion is challenging amid the lockdown.
Captagon Manufacturers
The drugs were in a cache fit up in industrial paper rolls in the form of (6.5-foot) high cylinders, which were in three containers shipped from Syria. Caches were resistant to x-rays screening.
The containers were leased by the Italian transport company Tarros that regularly serves several Mediterranean ports.
According to the Italian police, the haul was found by technical intelligence surveillance against members of Camorra crime group.
The same official recipient in Lugano, Switzerland tried to get 2.8 tons of hash and 190 kg of Captagon (1 million pills) in the same way two weeks earlier.
Captagon supplies have increased over the past twelve months:
In July 2019, 5.25 tons of Captagon were confiscated in Greece.
In February 2020, 5.6 tons of Captagon were seized in Dubai.
In April, Egyptian customs officers stumbled upon four tons of hashish, also from Latakia, packed in milk Tetra packs from a company owned by Rami Mahluf, the cousin of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. In the same month, Saudi officials discovered two batches of 44.7 million Captagon pills, almost half of them were packaged as mate tea, popular with the Syrian Alawites. Yabour, the tea maker, closely associated with the president’s brother and military commander Maher Assad, denied any involvement.
The cache equipment method at the Salerno drug batch implies that a paper mill was involved in the scheme. The trend to use packaging manufacturing facilities in drug trafficking is the hallmark for the Assad family.
In this way, the analysis gives reason to conclude that Assad’s family business has accumulated drug manufacturing facilities, particularly, Captagon.
Samer Kamal al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad’s uncle, operates one of several Captagon factories, owned by the family of the Syrian president, in the village of Al-Basha south of Latakia.
The rolls where Captagon pills were hidden had been produced at the Aleppo paper roll factory, owned by businessman Abdellatif Hamid. He added to this batch transporting as well.
The port of Latakia is controlled by the Assad family. Last fall, the port was leased to Iran, whose allied Lebanese Hezbollah fighters provided with know-how and chemicals at the beginning of large-scale drug manufacturing in Syria.
Therefore, the initial control of Captagon by Hezbollah in the Bekaa Valley and subsequent facilities transfer to Syria might speak for redistribution of the Captagon manufacturing market.
The Assad family’s participation in drug manufacturing and its transportation scheme might indicate both obtaining its own market share and working together with Hezbollah.
The transfer of the port might mean that Hezbollah, having agreed with Assad, took control of the logistics in drug trafficking from Syria.
The information available also suggests that ISIS as of 2015-2016 did not profit from Captagon and destroy Captagon factories when they found them.
Consequently, the ISIS is likely to make profit just selling on the retail market of its members but is unlikely to control the manufacturing process.
Since Russian bases are all-out in Latakia, and Russian intelligence services provide this province with counterintelligence, Moscow should be aware of the Syrian government’s involvement in drug manufacturing and trafficking. Moscow is most likely to turn a blind eye to the drug business of the Assad family, seeking to use this information to bear sway over the Syrian president.Since Soviet times, the Kremlin has seen the drugs spread in the West as a way to stifle Europe and the United States. Silent assistance to the Assad regime, as well as to the allies from Hezbollah, enables the Kremlin to back these forces financially amid the sanctions imposed on Russia itself.
