Captagon in the post-Assad era: how the drug trade becomes covert and extends internationally

Captagon in the post-Assad era: how the drug trade becomes covert and extends internationally

Syria’s transitional government is cracking down on the production of Captagon — an illicit synthetic stimulant that flourished under the sponsorship of the Bashar al-Assad regime until its fall in December.

But production and trade of the drug are continuing, particularly in parts of Syria not yet under the control of the new administration.

In June, Syria’s new interior minister announced on state television that his government had orchestrated a complete crackdown on the drug Captagon. 

“We can say that there no longer is any factory that produces Captagon in Syria,” said the minister, Anas Khatab.

But his claim has been followed by a string of high-profile seizures of both Captagon pills and the materials used to make them — including 500 kg of precursor chemicals found outside Damascus earlier this month — raising questions about whether an illicit industry that flourished under the sponsorship of dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime has really been wiped out, or has just gone deeper underground in parts of the country not yet under the control of the transitional government.

Before the fall of Assad in December last year, the U.S. and U.K. had imposed sanctions on senior regime officials for enriching themselves through the production and trafficking of the drug, as well as Iran-backed militia Hezbollah associates “responsible for trafficking it across the Middle East.” (The Assad regime denied accusations that it produced and marketed Captagon.)

Credit: SIRAJ

Chemicals used to make Captagon found inside an abandoned drug production facility in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria.

International experts and drug monitoring agencies say that while large-scale state-sponsored production in Syria has collapsed, small, nimble labs still exist — even as traffickers are also dispersing production and stockpiles of the drug from Syria to neighboring countries with longstanding markets. 

“You do still have in Syria small outfits moving around, setting up mobile laboratories, producing stuff, especially down south where the central government’s reach isn’t as strong” said Nicholas Krohley, who runs the Switzerland-based consultancy FrontLine Advisory and co-authored a report on Captagon last year, adding that these “shops” have always struggled to meet demand.

Captagon is particularly popular in the Middle East, especially in Gulf states like Saudi Arabia. In 2021, experts estimated the trade’s yearly potential street value to be at least $5.7 billion. Its spread presents a unique security challenge for law enforcement in the region, as poverty, social insecurity, and war create ready markets for the drug and opportunities for traffickers.  

Fighters from the new Syrian government forces uncover Captagon pills hidden inside an electrical power adapter in a facility used to produce Captagon under the previous regime of Bashar al-Assad in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria.

Caroline Rose, who leads the Captagon Trade Project at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank New Lines Institute, told OCCRP that “in the immediate aftermath of the regime’s fall, the interim government’s counternarcotics strategy was a simple one of interdiction and exposure, seizing the biggest, most obvious Captagon facilities with close ties to the regime (managed by individuals who fled and left the facilities unsupervised) and inviting journalists in for high-level coverage.”

Now, the new administration has the harder task of disrupting the smaller and medium-scale remnants of the trade, said Rose. The remnants were either directly tied to the regime or conduits to it, she said, adding that the new administration “is challenged by the current illicit landscape” as it has reduced capacity to exert control and “enact buy-in from communities along Syria’s coast and borderlands — traditional hubs of Captagon trafficking.” Ports and borders under the former regime’s control became hubs of the trade, benefitting from laxer security. 

In June, a spokesman for the General Directorate for Combating Narcotics, a division of the Syrian Ministry of the Interior, told OCCRP’s partner ARIJ that Syrian officials had seized 16 drug shipments bound for neighboring countries and dismantled more than 10 large laboratories and small workshops since the fall of the regime.

Credit: Screenshot of a Facebook post by Syria’s Ministry of the Interior

Syria’s Ministry of the Interior announced a Captagon seizure in Al Nabak, Syria, on June 27, 2025.

Abdelhay said that most of the laboratories were located in areas affiliated with the Fourth Division, one of the Assad regime’s most powerful military units, which was sanctioned by the United States in 2020 for running illicit revenue-generation schemes, including for producing and trafficking Captagon. “We also seized more than one laboratory on the Syrian-Lebanese border and in the coastal region,” he added.

On April 12, the Syrian government announced a raid on a warehouse in Latakia, the country’s main Mediterranean port. They uncovered 5,000 iron bars in which about 4 million Captagon pills were hidden, ready for export, in what was reportedly their largest Captagon bust since the removal of Assad. In the following weeks, authorities said they dismantled a Captagon factory in Homs, near the Syrian-Lebanese border, and seized another 4 million tablets in the Latakia area.

The Ministry of the Interior announced the seizure of 500 kg of precursor chemicals for making the drug hidden inside food containers, along with a large quantity of pills outside Damascus this month. This followed the seizure of hundreds of thousands of pills in Aleppo and Daraa a month earlier. 

The high profile raids come as senior figures in the military and transitional government call for more international support to fight Captagon networks. According to the Damascus-based media outlet Syria Report, Brigadier General Khaled Eid, Director of the Anti-Narcotics Department at the Ministry of the Interior, told the Annual Captagon Trade Conference in Damascus this August: “We haven’t received any tangible assistance or support yet. We have however enjoyed a degree of coordination and sharing information. We also attended training courses in certain countries. There are many promises, but sanctions remain an obstacle.” 

Captagon Spillover Into the Region 

The technical knowledge to produce the drug or redeploy laboratories elsewhere has not been wiped out, despite the seizure of large quantities of pills in Syria, according to the New Lines Institute.

Pre-existing production infrastructure in neighboring countries can also potentially be stepped up to take over and feed the unabated demand for the drug.

Credit: Ali Al Ibrahim/SIRAJ

Fighters from the new Syrian government forces inside a Captagon production facility in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria.

According to the latest World Drug Report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), “several large seizures reported in late 2024 and early 2025 in neighboring countries such as Iraq and Jordan, as well as Saudi Arabia, point to the continued use of established trafficking routes.”

Dr Mousa Daoud Al-Tareefi, president of The Jordan Anti-Drug Society, told OCCRP that in Jordan, “while availability has declined [after the collapse of the regime in Syria], some quantities are still being trafficked, indicating that production and storage may continue in some capacity.”

He added that “part of the decline in Captagon use may be explained by users shifting toward other substances such as crystal meth, synthetic cannabinoids (“Joker”), or misused prescription drugs. These alternatives are increasingly seen in some communities, especially due to ease of access or local production.”

In the suburbs of Beirut, a 28-year-old mechanic who became addicted to Captagon after starting to take it so that he could stay awake at work, said the pills were now “a bit more difficult to find,” and more expensive, but still widely available. 

“Before, you could buy a pill for $2 or $3,” he explained, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the social stigma surrounding drug addiction. “Now, some people are selling one for $5 or even $7 depending on the type. If you want something guaranteed, you’ll have to pay more. It’s still available; it’s not rare. You just want to know who’s the real deal and who’s the fraud.”

Experts now wonder if the mass production of the drug will regrow with new patrons. “We don’t know yet who has enough power, will, and room, if they decide to go back to that industry,” said Krohley.

“There is a lot of uncertainty around that,” said Angela Me, chief of research and analysis at UNODC, in an interview with UN News in June. “We see a lot of large shipments going from Syria through, for example, Jordan. There are probably still stocks of the substance being shipped out, but we’re looking at where the production may be shifting to.”

Rose and her colleagues have been ringing alarm bells over the last year about the expansion and diversification of Captagon production “moving closer to destination hubs or valuable transshipment sites in Europe, in order to increase interdiction resiliency or improve revenue opportunities,” she said, although she noted that the spread of Captagon production to other countries is not a new phenomenon.

She told OCCRP that Captagon laboratories were identified last year in Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, Kuwait, and even Germany, and that in Iraq, production had expanded into the country’s north.  

The UNODC reported the dismantling of a methamphetamine and Captagon laboratory in the Iraqi Kurdish province of Sulaymaniyah in 2024, and  attempts to set-up Captagon production facilities in Iraq’s southern provinces a year prior.

In May, Lebanese authorities busted a clandestine Captagon lab in the Hermel area, near the Syrian border, following the seizure of a truck loaded with equipment for manufacturing Captagon that entered the country in April.

Credit: Lebanese Army

Lebanese authorities dismantled a clandestine Captagon lab in Hermel, near the Syrian border, after seizing a truck in May 2025 loaded with drug-making equipment.

This summer, Yemeni authorities from the internationally recognized government announced the capture of more than 1.5 million pills from Houthi-controlled Sanaa that were destined for Saudi Arabia, where the main consumer market for the drug is concentrated, according to the European Union Drugs Agency.

Major General Mutahhar Al-Shuaibi, director of police in the Yemeni port city of Aden, accused the rival-governing Houthis of establishing a Captagon factory in Al-Mahwit region, northern Yemen, “similar to the factory that was in Syria,” adding that Yemen is now being used as a transit zone for Saudi Arabia-bound Captagon.