Discovery of Vast Syrian Drug Lab Reveals Secrets of Illicit Captagon Trade

Pills, which, according to fighters loyal to the new ruling Syrian body, are captagon, are placed inside an apple-shaped container, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, December 12, 2024. (Reuters)
Pills, which, according to fighters loyal to the new ruling Syrian body, are captagon, are placed inside an apple-shaped container, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, December 12, 2024. (Reuters)
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Discovery of Vast Syrian Drug Lab Reveals Secrets of Illicit Captagon Trade

Pills, which, according to fighters loyal to the new ruling Syrian body, are captagon, are placed inside an apple-shaped container, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, December 12, 2024. (Reuters)
Pills, which, according to fighters loyal to the new ruling Syrian body, are captagon, are placed inside an apple-shaped container, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, December 12, 2024. (Reuters)

The industrial-scale drug lab sat just up a hill from a main road on the western edge of Damascus, the city that was the seat of power for the Assad family which long denied any links to the narcotics trade.

President Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria was accused by Washington and others of profiteering from the production and sale of the addictive amphetamine-like stimulant commonly known as captagon which became entrenched across the Middle East, from front lines of wars to construction sites and high-end parties.

The annual trade in captagon is worth billions of dollars a year, experts say, and Western governments have linked the illicit trade in Syria to Assad's brother, Maher al-Assad, and the Fourth Division of the Syrian army he commanded.

Maher Assad's whereabouts are not known and Reuters could not reach him for comment on the allegations.

Bashar Assad's fall after a lightning opposition offensive has allowed journalists for the first time to start searching in Syria for evidence of the captagon empire.

In the dark, cavernous warehouses at the abandoned site in the city of Douma, fighters who ousted Assad said they found thousands of pills hidden in furniture, fruit, decorative pebbles and voltage stabilizers that Reuters reporters saw stacked on pallets, with a trailer waiting outside.

Many of the pills were stamped with the double crescent logo or the word "Lexus" that identifies captagon pills.

"These are ready for export," said one of the fighters loyal to Syria's new rulers who took Reuters reporters inside and then cracked open one of the export-ready devices, revealing the pills hidden inside.

Caroline Rose, director of the New York-based New Lines Institute Captagon Trade Project, said the global trade in captagon has an estimated value of $10 billion and put the ousted Syrian leadership's annual profit from it at around $2.4 billion.

Rose, whose organization tracks all publicly recorded captagon seizures and lab raids, said the site seen by Reuters appeared to be one of the biggest captagon labs that has been found.

"It’s very possible that it's the biggest one that existed in regime-held Syria," she said.

BARRELS, BOXES AND BOTTLES

Inside was a pill-press and, in the warehouse above, dozens of barrels, boxes and bottles of different chemicals.

They included Chloroform, Potassium Iodide, Formaldehyde Solution, Ammonia solution sg 0.91, Acetic Acid, Hydrochloric acid, Cyclohexanone and Petroleum ether 40-60 degrees C.

Captagon was the brand name of a stimulant first produced in Germany in the 1960s to help treat attention conditions including deficit disorders and narcolepsy.

It was discontinued but an illicit version of the drug known as "poor man's cocaine" continued to be produced in eastern Europe and later in the Arab world, becoming prominent in the conflict that erupted in Syria following anti-government protests in 2011.

It generates focus and staves off sleep and hunger. It has been banned in many countries including the US and can have harmful side effects.

FROM CAPTAIN KORN TO CAPTAGON

Syrian businessman Fares Al-Tout said his family had owned the factory before Syria's civil war, when it was built to produce potato chips branded Captain Korn.

He said it was seized in 2018 by a businessman close to Maher, Amer al-Khiti.

"They flipped it from the production of food to the production of captagon that killed Syria's children in support of the Fourth Division," Tout told Reuters.

The USimposed sanctions on Khiti in 2020 over his ties to the Assad authorities. Britain imposed sanctions on him in 2023, saying he "operates and controls multiple businesses in Syria which facilitate the production and smuggling of drugs, including captagon."

Khiti could not immediately be reached for comment.

A Reuters reporter on the scene found electoral pamphlets for Syria's peoples assembly, its legislature, lying on the floor with Khiti listed as one of the candidates, as well as separate electoral cards with just his name on them.

In the days since Assad's fall, opposition fighters say they have found several sites across the country where the drug was produced and prepared for export.

They have sometimes set fire to the pills or poured them down drains, according to videos shared online by accounts affiliated with them.

Rose noted that her organization tracked all publicly recorded captagon seizures and lab raids.

"Up until the regime fell, there was not a single incident of a laboratory seizure on the database in regime-held territories," Rose said.



Jenin Camp: A War on People, Not Just Gunmen

Israeli army drops leaflets over Jenin refugee camp (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Israeli army drops leaflets over Jenin refugee camp (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Jenin Camp: A War on People, Not Just Gunmen

Israeli army drops leaflets over Jenin refugee camp (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Israeli army drops leaflets over Jenin refugee camp (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Mahmoud Al-Rakh hesitated before setting foot in the Jenin refugee camp where he was born and raised—now reduced to rubble and a death trap by Israeli forces.

After much deliberation, he finally mustered the courage to enter, slipping in under the cover of a group of journalists who, after lengthy discussions, had also decided to venture inside. They all knew the risks: gunfire, injury, arrest, or even death.

The road leading from Jenin’s famous Cinema Roundabout to the camp’s entrance offered a grim preview of what lay ahead. Near the government hospital at the street’s end, heavily armed Israeli soldiers had turned the camp’s main entrance into a military outpost.

But local residents, camp youths, and journalists advised that there was another way in—through the back of the hospital. What they found inside was nothing short of shocking.

There was no one in Jenin. No authorities, no residents, no fighters. As the saying goes, you could hear a pin drop.

Only Israeli soldiers remained, standing amid the vast rubble—silent witnesses to a history of resilience, battles, lives, and untold stories. They lurked in wait, and it seemed their ultimate vision was to erase Palestinian presence and claim the place as their own.

In the distance, visitors can spot signs planted by Israeli soldiers, bearing Hebrew names like “Yair Axis”—a desperate attempt to impose new identities on the land.

Israel’s campaign was not merely a fight against armed militants. It was a war on the land, the people, history, the present, and even the Palestinian narrative.

Israel’s military assault on the Jenin refugee camp, launched on January 21, marked the beginning of an expanded campaign across the West Bank after officially designating it a war zone.

Dubbed operation “Iron Wall,” the assault signaled a shift in Israel’s approach, drawing clear parallels to its 2002 operation during the Second Intifada, when it swept through the entire West Bank.

The latest offensive began with drone strikes targeting infrastructure in Jenin, followed by a large-scale ground invasion involving special forces, Shin Bet operatives, and military police. Aerial bombardments continued throughout the operation.

Twenty-five days later, Israel had killed 26 Palestinians, wounded dozens, and forcibly displaced all 20,000 residents—every single one.

Asharq Al-Awsat asked journalist Ahmed Al-Shawish about what the Israelis are doing inside the camp now.

He replied that Israeli forces were setting up permanent military outposts in areas inaccessible to us—a confirmation of the defense minister’s earlier statement that they had no plans to withdraw.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally announced the operation, saying it had been approved by the security cabinet as “another step toward achieving our goal: strengthening security in the West Bank.”

He added: “We are systematically and decisively acting against Iran’s axis—whether in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, or the West Bank.”

The decision to attack Jenin had already been made; the timing was the only question.

Israeli leaders waited for the Gaza ceasefire to take hold, then shifted focus to the West Bank three days later.

Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar had advised the security cabinet that broader measures were needed to reshape the situation and eliminate militant groups in the West Bank.

He warned against complacency, arguing that the recent drop in attacks was “misleading and deceptive” and did not reflect the true scale of what he called “the growing terrorist threat on the ground.”