A sense of optimism is growing within Lebanon’s security establishment that 2026 could mark the end of the country’s “drug world,” a shadow economy born out of the Lebanese civil war and fueled by the conflicts that followed.
Those wars created an ideal environment for the trade to flourish, turning Lebanon and Syria into hubs for narcotics trafficking that spread across borders through Jordan and into the Gulf, particularly Saudi Arabia.
The Kingdom is a main target of traffickers who moved their illicit goods along smuggling routes known as “tracks,” amassing fortunes that went on to finance states and militias.
This optimism stems from major developments along the Lebanese-Syrian border following the fall of the previous Syrian regime and the withdrawal of the army’s elite Fourth Division, which had long maintained control there.
The departure of that force led to the expulsion of drug traffickers who had operated from what security officials called the “gray zone” inside Syrian territory.
A senior Lebanese security official told Asharq Al-Awsat that the war in Syria had been “the spark that ignited the drug trade,” while the war’s end has signaled “the beginning of its demise,” after coordinated operations struck the trade at every level, from production and storage to distribution.
The border areas on the Syrian side had served as a safe haven for drug traffickers between 2023 and 2024. Many had settled in villages, buying houses under the protection of Syrian security forces, particularly the Fourth Division, which acted as their commercial partner. With the regime’s collapse, the traffickers fled back to Lebanon, where they became easy prey for the Lebanese army. Military intelligence units pursued them relentlessly — arresting some, killing others.
Development as a Weapon
According to Lebanese security assessments, a lasting end to the drug trade will require not only security pressure but also “a dose of development” in Lebanon’s deprived regions, mainly the Bekaa Valley and Akkar.
Officials say development projects must complement the army’s and security forces’ relentless crackdowns by addressing the deep poverty that traffickers have long exploited to justify their activities and recruit locals.
For decades, the smuggling routes that run through these neglected areas have shaped livelihoods. Some traffickers built reputations as “Robin Hoods,” showering locals with gifts and grants in exchange for silence and loyalty. But their generosity comes at a price.
A Lebanese security source told Asharq Al-Awsat that one well-known drug lord, for example, had paid the tuition fees of several university students — only to later turn them into campus distributors.
The Boom Years and the Rise of ‘Robin Hood’
Before the Syrian crisis, Lebanon’s drug trade was estimated at around 1.3 million pills. That figure surged to three million during the war, before dropping to about 400,000.
“They were outlaws who rose to power — and we turned them back into outlaws,” a Lebanese security official said.
The “golden age” of drug traffickers in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley returned after the country’s financial collapse in late 2019, which coincided with a crippling political paralysis following the end of former President Michel Aoun’s term and delays in electing his successor.
Traffickers seized on the despair of impoverished locals in regions long neglected by the state, especially in areas where chronic deprivation had persisted well before the currency crash. Residents say political leaders’ neglect had become a way of life.
Many young men fell into the grip of the trade, especially after the rise of the “new star” of the drug world — Captagon — which flooded Lebanon as both a manufactured and exported product after 2011, directly linked to the Syrian conflict.
Syrian traffickers and influential figures in government and security circles on both sides of the porous Lebanese-Syrian border played key roles.
The major dealers soon gained social, and at times political, influence. Some ran for or considered running in elections. Others portrayed themselves as benevolent outlaws, “Robin Hoods” who took from the rich and gave to the poor.
They funded irrigation and electricity projects, offered social assistance, mediated legal troubles for locals, and used their connections with politicians to secure jobs.
In effect, their mini-state kept expanding and benefiting from overlaps with powerful groups operating on both sides of the border.
The equation was simple: export drugs to the “enemy camp” to earn foreign currency, while the lucrative commissions from this trade helped finance a state — or a quasi-state.
As one trafficker boasted, “I only need one shipment out of ten to make it through — and I’m set.”
The Captagon Story
Captagon is often described as a “revolution” in the drug world. Unlike cannabis or opium, it needs no farmland. It is not bound by seasons, and its production, packaging, and smuggling are easy to conceal, often escaping traditional detection methods used by scanners and police dogs.
But while distribution and smuggling can be kept secret, production is harder to hide. Manufacturing Captagon requires specialized laboratories that emit strong, unpleasant odors during the process, making concealment difficult.
To overcome that, producers often lured powerful figures with money and convinced property owners in remote areas to rent out their buildings.
Traffickers also benefited from operating in what they called “the gray zone,” a loophole in countries that had not yet classified Captagon as an illegal narcotic, including Lebanon itself.
When security forces arrested traffickers, they often charged them with possessing other contraband items, such as weapons or different drugs, rather than Captagon itself.
The ‘Kings of the Tracks’ and the Secret Formulas
Captagon first spread in Iraq and Syria, where long-distance truck drivers used it to stay awake and alert during grueling journeys. By the early 2000s, it had gained recognition as a recreational drug. Between 2007 and 2011, a new class of traffickers emerged — the so-called “kings of the tracks” — who controlled the routes carrying Captagon from factories to consumers, particularly across the Gulf.
Production initially centered in border areas on the Syrian side. But as the Syrian conflict escalated, many traffickers relocated to Lebanon, setting up factories in partnership with local counterparts.
Interestingly, the Syrian traffickers guarded their manufacturing secrets closely, never sharing the exact formula with their Lebanese partners. Lebanese military intelligence — which spearheaded operations in the Bekaa Valley and border regions — later obtained confessions from captured dealers confirming this. Some Lebanese producers eventually discovered the formula, or came close enough to replicate it, leading to a surge in “knockoff” pills of lower quality.
The profits were enormous. A single pill costing less than 20 cents to make could sell for $20 — and up to $50 at retail prices. The huge margins drew new players into the trade.
When the war broke out in Syria, extremist groups took over border zones and destroyed the factories. Many traffickers fled to government-held areas or to Lebanon. But between 2012 and 2014, those same groups realized the profit potential and turned to Captagon as a major source of funding.
The years 2012 to 2023 marked the height of Captagon’s boom. Production and trafficking flourished, dominated by four or five top smugglers who monopolized the Gulf trade. Rivalries grew, with some traffickers roasting the pills to resemble desert sand, while others added logos and colors to give their products distinctive “brands.”
The Syrian Regime’s Entry — and Wagner’s Role
By mid-2012, influential figures within the Syrian regime had entered the Captagon trade. They did not take part directly in production or distribution but facilitated the movement of shipments across Syrian territory by issuing “permits” that allowed trucks to pass in exchange for fixed fees per crate.
At the time, Captagon traffickers traveled freely around the world, yet Beirut remained their favorite destination. Many opened restaurants and cafés in the Lebanese capital that served as perfect fronts for laundering drug money.
The production and distribution process followed several stages, starting with the purchase of raw materials.
Most materials were legally available on the market because they had legitimate uses in medicine, cleaning agents, pesticides, and fertilizers.
Traffickers bought them through supermarket owners or importers, paying premium prices to ensure cooperation. Even the machinery required for production was easy to acquire, as it was commonly used by pharmaceutical and chemical companies.
Most factories were based in Syrian border regions, but during the war, some were moved into Lebanon’s rugged mountains.
Remote houses, abandoned workshops, and livestock farms were rented at high prices and converted into makeshift labs. Some Syrian villages, such as Jarmash, became known as safe havens for dealers fleeing Lebanese security forces.
During the Syrian war, the trade thrived as never before. The Lebanese-Syrian and Syrian-Jordanian borders slipped out of government control, and despite the fighting, traffickers maintained good relations with all sides.
Everyone profited — from local militias to the Syrian regime, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah — all of whom were waging difficult battles and relied on the same smuggling routes used for narcotics to move weapons, equipment, and sometimes fighters into besieged areas.
Russia’s Wagner Group even established an air bridge to transport Captagon to Libya, charging around $5,000 per crate.
Between 2014 and 2020, many traffickers relocated to Lebanon, exploiting the turmoil in border areas seized by extremist factions and Lebanon’s own deep political divisions. With economic hardship spreading, more people turned to the trade, resulting in a flood of lower-quality products.
During that period, the Lebanese army’s grip on the border weakened, especially after it suffered losses and kidnappings at the hands of militant groups. Smugglers took advantage, carving out their own routes and, in some cases, buying influence in politics by financing or backing candidates in elections.
The Declaration of the War on Drugs
As Lebanon’s security situation began to stabilize and drug traffickers grew bolder, the Lebanese authorities declared war on narcotics.
In the Bekaa Valley and along the Syrian border, the Lebanese army took the lead, while the Internal Security Forces assumed responsibility for operations inside the country and at ports.
Army intelligence spearheaded the campaign in the Bekaa, raiding Captagon factories and dismantling production lines. But once-peaceful traffickers turned violent. Few raids ended without clashes between the army and drug gangs. The fugitives then retreated deep into the rugged mountain areas, where troops pursued them relentlessly.
A senior security official told Asharq Al-Awsat that traffickers had offered large bribes to officers and anti-narcotics officials to halt operations, especially after the first year of confrontations inflicted losses estimated at around $200 million.
To evade army raids, traffickers shifted to using mobile labs mounted on trucks that could be moved quickly between sites. Yet the design had a fatal flaw: once production began, the trucks became slow and vulnerable to detection.
The War on Kingpins and the Battle of Abu Sallah
Lebanon’s war on drugs soon evolved into a war on the kingpins themselves. The army began targeting major gang leaders, even carrying out drone and airstrikes against some of them.
One of the most dramatic operations was the raid targeting the country’s most notorious drug lord in the Bekaa Valley, known as Abu Sallah, whose real name is Ali Mounzer Zeaiter. The raid sent a clear message to the underworld, forcing many traffickers to disappear under mounting security pressure.
Zeaiter earned the nickname Abu Sallah early in his career, when he would lower a basket tied to a rope from his apartment balcony to collect cash and deliver drugs to customers — a primitive system that became his signature. Operating from Beirut’s eastern suburbs, he later built a vast network and amassed enough power to command what security sources described as a small private army of gunmen and dealers.
When army intelligence planned to capture him, they discovered he had set up 346 surveillance points to protect himself, a mix of cameras mounted on poles and disguised “express cafés” along every road leading to his residence, designed to alert him to any approaching force.
After eight months of planning, the army launched the operation during a dinner Abu Sallah was hosting for his associates. Intelligence officers managed to take control of some surveillance cameras and redirect them away from the target area. The head of army intelligence in the Bekaa even helped create a diversion by taking his wife to a restaurant in Beirut known to be monitored by Abu Sallah’s informants.
The operation was conducted under strict secrecy and only seven people knew of the plan. The target was code-named “Marlboro” to prevent any leaks.
Abu Sallah escaped the ambush by using his wife as a human shield, killing a soldier, and fleeing toward Syria. He later returned after the regime’s collapse, only to be tracked down by the army, which killed him in an airstrike on his vehicle.
According to Lebanese security assessments, Abu Sallah had been the country’s number one trafficker. He had extensive influence in universities and schools — his prime retail markets — where he paid tuition fees for students or enrolled his own associates to promote drugs among their peers.
