Syrian rebels seize drug warehouse allegedly run by Bashar al-Assad's brother
Kyiv • UNN
HTS rebels seized military bases and Captagon distribution centers, allegedly run by Bashar al-Assad's brother. Huge quantities of narcotic stimulants were found. They plan to destroy them.
Led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, the rebels say they have found a huge amount of drugs and have promised to destroy them.
Transmits UNN with reference to Agence France-Presse and ABC.
The rebels, led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, have seized military bases and distribution centers for the amphetamine-type stimulant that has flooded the hidden market across the Middle East. After the Islamist-led victors found a huge shipment of drugs, they vowed to destroy them.
A black-masked militant, Abu Malek al-Shami, said that the captured factory producing psychostimulant drugs Captagon was linked to Maher al-Assad and Amer Hiti.
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Maher al-Assad, the brother of Bashar al-Assad, was a military commander and is now believed to be on the run. He has often been accused of being the force behind the lucrative captagon trade.
We found a large number of devices that were filled with packages of Captagon tablets intended for smuggling out of the country. This is a huge number. It is impossible to count
For reference
There is now information circulating online that Bashar al-Assad's regime has earned billions of dollars by exporting highly addictive amphetamine from Syria to the oil-rich Gulf countries.
Captagon was born as a drug in Germany in the sixties, and was used recreationally, in particular to interfere with sleep for certain purposes. But the drug was banned. Nevertheless, Captagon was produced in Syria and circulated in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, and in European countries.
The drug has been called “cocaine for the poor” (a tablet costs about twenty dollars) and “the drug of jihadists” because it was believed to have been used by the terrorists who attacked Paris during the November 2015 attacks.
It has also been reported that the drug was used by ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) and Hamas terrorists, including those who committed the October 7 massacre, which is why Captagon was nicknamed the “ISIS drug.
The consumption of Captagon is still growing, ABC writes: there are British sources who even claim that its turnover is similar to or even higher than that of Mexican drug cartels.
Besides the price, the key to its success is that it increases activity and eliminates hunger.
For example, students use it to increase their productivity; taxi drivers, truck drivers, and even soldiers use it to stay awake and work on the job; others use khat to avoid eating, explains Caroline Rose, director of the New Lines Institute.
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Captagon has fueled an epidemic of drug abuse in the wealthy Gulf states, threatening social peace, Carnegie researcher Hesham Alghannam wrote.
Assad allegedly used the captagon trade as a means of putting pressure on the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, to reintegrate Syria into the Arab world, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace researcher Hesham Alghannam said.
Addendum
It is now known that although the rebel-announced discovery of captagon in a warehouse was large, smaller but still impressive stockpiles of the substance were also found at military facilities associated with units under Maher al-Assad's command.
“When we entered the area, we found a huge amount of captagon. That's why we destroyed it and burned it,” says an HTS fighter with the military nickname ‘Khattab’.
