A constructing the place Captagon was being made earlier than the Assad regime fell.
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Claire Harbage/NPR
DAMASCUS, Syria — A luxurious villa dominates a hilltop overlooking the countryside simply 15 miles outdoors the capital, Damascus. The driveway has a streak of white powder resulting in the doorway. The bottom is sticky, and the air is crammed with a powerful odor of tar.
A battered pickup truck with an anti-aircraft gun is parked on the prime of the driveway. The big backyard is unkempt and the swimming pool is soiled and deserted. All this hints at a extra sinister story inside; this was a manufacturing unit for a extremely addictive drug referred to as Captagon.
For the previous a number of years, the regime of Syria’s ousted president, Bashar al-Assad, produced and trafficked in Captagon, sending it to nations all through the area, the place it was fashionable amongst younger folks. The Assad authorities earned billions of {dollars} in a determined try and prop up an economic system that collapsed in the course of the nation’s lengthy civil warfare.
With Assad now gone, proof of the intensive drug operations is now coming to gentle.
From a authorized pharmaceutical to a bootleg get together drug
Captagon was created as a authorized pharmaceutical drug in Germany within the early Sixties to deal with situations like consideration deficit dysfunction. It offers customers a rush of power and might make them very productive within the quick time period.
Nevertheless, Captagon can also be very addictive and might trigger hallucinations and coronary heart issues. Captagon was banned world wide, together with within the U.S. However it gained a second life as a bootleg get together drug fashionable in Japanese Europe and the Center East.
White powder dusts the driveway on the entrance to the constructing the place Captagon was being made.
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Abu Bakr al-Tartousi, 29, led the group of insurgent fighters who found this manufacturing unit within the distant space of Masakin al-Deemaas shortly after his group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, helped topple the Assad regime.
Tartousi is wearing fatigues and a backward-facing baseball cap, and he fidgets with an assault rifle throughout his physique.
He steps into the center of what would have been the lounge of this home, with marble flooring and two huge, low-hanging crystal chandeliers.
Stacked in opposition to one wall are brown drums of a liquid chemical with labels that say “Manufactured in India.” In opposition to one other wall is a ceiling-high pile of sacks crammed with white powder.
“These are the substances to make reliable drugs,” Tartousi mentioned. “However they used it to make Captagon right here.”
Abu Bakr al-Tartousi, a part of the HTS navy that now’s guarding the constructing the place Captagon was made.
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The lab was arrange within the massive, dusty kitchen cluttered with heavy obligation equipment and rubbish. The kitchen appears like one present in a restaurant, with massive steel sinks and an area the place an industrial-size range can be.
He mentioned the rebels referred to as the Ministry of Well being as quickly as they found the manufacturing unit, they usually had been instructed to burn as lots of the medicine as they might. A charred pile sits in the midst of the driveway.
“The officers got here to take samples first, to determine which supplies we must always destroy and what to maintain,” Tartousi mentioned.
A soldier with the HTS exhibits a number of the Captagon capsules that they discovered on the facility.
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In a single room, small, spherical casings litter the ground. Tartousi’s sneakers crunch over them as he walks. He picks up a pile of the pellets and begins to smash one. After a number of tries, the pellet breaks open, and in his palm a small, pinkish pill spills out.
“That is it,” Tartousi mentioned, turning it over in his hand. “That is Captagon.”
Syria was the hub of the Captagon commerce
“Round 2018, 2019, when the regime began to acknowledge that this was a profitable illicit commerce, we noticed this large-scale funding into industrial scale manufacturing, manufacturing services, warehouses, trafficking networks,” mentioned Caroline Rose on the New Strains Institute, a suppose tank primarily based in Washington with an emphasis on worldwide affairs, together with the Center East. She’s studied this drug commerce for years.
Rose mentioned a key determine was Assad’s brother, Maher al-Assad. He is finest often called the regime’s brutal enforcer. However he additionally ran the Captagon enterprise by working carefully with Syria’s navy and safety companies.
A soldier with the HTS exhibits how Captagon capsules match into the capsule holders scattered throughout the ground.
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This villa outdoors Damascus is not the one manufacturing unit present in Syria. There have been a number of, together with a big manufacturing facility that was lately raided in Douma, additionally close to the capital.
“It was a manufacturing unit for potato chips referred to as Captain Corn,” mentioned Rose. “After its manufacturing unit proprietor left Syria in 2018, Maher personally approved that manufacturing unit for use for Captagon manufacturing. It was Maher that actually operated and coordinated and created this very clean construction.”
The Syrians distributed the drug all through the area, with main markets within the rich Gulf nations, together with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. From Syria’s perspective these had been superb markets. Wealthy nations with numerous younger folks. Alcohol is banned and penalties for arduous medicine are harsh. Captagon carried much less of a social stigma and was comparatively cheap and extensively accessible.
A constructing the place Captagon was being made earlier than the Assad regime fell.
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Claire Harbage/NPR
As using Captagon elevated, Syria’s neighbors sought to cease it. Nevertheless, most had remoted Bashar al-Assad because of the means he was prosecuting the warfare in Syria and due to this fact did not have a whole lot of affect over him.
Prior to now couple of years, a number of Arab states have moved to reestablish some hyperlinks with him. That is partly as a result of it was wanting like Assad had survived the civil warfare. The preventing had tapered off, the regime nonetheless held the main cities, and it appeared there was no actual various.
Additionally, a number of the Arab states believed that in the event that they reengaged with Assad, they might work collectively to crack down on the drug trafficking.
In impact, Syria had created an issue it might use as leverage to finish its isolation.
Tablet holders are scattered throughout the ground within the constructing the place Captagon was being made underneath Assad’s regime.
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David McCloskey, a former CIA official who labored on Syria, described the Syrian regime’s technique this fashion: “Let’s earn cash by promoting one thing that is profitable to our regime. After which let’s create an issue for the Saudis, the Jordanians, the Gulf states, in order that they’ve to come back to us if they need this turned off. It looks as if a number of the logic in reengaging him was lowering this drug commerce.”
The fighters who’ve taken over in Damascus say they now need to cease this drug commerce on the supply.
The swimming pool is soiled and deserted at a constructing the place Captagon was being made earlier than Assad fell.
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“We’ll now rely on corporations and establishments, building and businessmen,” mentioned fighter Abu Mohamed al-Suri, 31, who guarded the gate of the villa.
However this may rely on how a lot management a brand new Syrian authorities is ready to set up, mentioned Caroline Rose. She thinks the larger operations run by the Assad regime are prone to get shut down. Nevertheless, smaller, underground labs might survive or crop up elsewhere.
After all, that is simply one of many many issues Syria faces because it tries to rebuild.
