Last week, Iraqi authorities intercepted one of the largest shipments of the illegal drug, Captagon, they had ever stopped. Just over a ton of the pills — an amphetamine-like drug that’s highly addictive and popular with users in wealthy Gulf states — were found hidden in a truck heading over the Iraqi border from Turkey. It had apparently come from Syria.
Observers immediately asked: Why were such large shipments of Captagon still being discovered, several months after Syria’s authoritarian Assad regime was ousted?
In Syria, during years of civil war, the Captagon trade became one of the authoritarian Assad government’s biggest earners. Under sanctions for war crimes, it was one of the regime’s only ways to make money. Experts say Captagon was bringing in billions annually, adding up to sums much larger than Syria’s regular government budget.
In early December last year, the Assad regime was ousted by a coalition of opposition groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS. The latter has since formed an interim government and pledged to crack down on Captagon producers and dealers.
HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, now head of the current caretaker government, said in a speech that Syria would be “purified” of the drug trade.
In January, Syria signed an agreement with Jordan pledging to put an end to the Captagon trade.
So why hasn’t this happened?
Partially because of the general, ongoing security issues in Syria. The interim government doesn’t have the funding, staff, time or surveillance equipment to stamp out Captagon production and smuggling altogether.
But there are other factors too.
The Washington-based Newlines Institute has been tracking Captagon smuggling reports since 2016 in a dedicated database and in 2024, they noticed the Assad regime putting more pressure on Captagon smuggling networks.
This was most likely due to the pressure the regime was under from other Arab countries. Saudi Arabia and Jordan, for example, see Captagon as a serious problem for their own people, as well as a security issue, and have both been trying to get Syria to reduce the drug dealing in return for better regional relations.
As a result of the Assad regime crackdown, “we have seen over the last year, Captagon trafficking overspill beyond Syria, into Iraq, into Turkey, Germany, the Netherlands, Egypt and interestingly, even Kuwait,” Caroline Rose, director of the crime-conflict nexus portfolio at the Newlines Institute, explained last week during a virtual panel hosted by the Carnegie Middle East Center. “The regime didn’t know it at the time … [but] they were unknowingly setting up this illicit trade to thrive after the regime had fallen.”
25 March 2025
Story by Cathrin Schaer
