In a remote building just outside of Damascus, Syria, a small potato factory sits abandoned and filled with drugs like Captagon, a stimulant and one of the most powerful street drugs in the Middle East.
Facing sanctions from western nations because of his use of poison gas on his own people during the Syrian civil war, Bashaar Al-Assad turned to the drug trade to make money. Assad controlled 80% of the Captagon trade in the Middle East and the world, raking in more than $5 billion a year, three times more than the Mexican and Latin American drug cartels combined.
Assad, former dictator of Syria, fled from rebel forces on December 8th, 2024, and sought sanctuary in Russia, Assad’s ally in the civil war that destroyed Syria in the past decade. According to Al Jazeera, “Captagon wasn’t just a party drug. It’s been used by fighters in the region for years to keep them alert and inexhaustible on the battlefield.”
The Syrian rebels that overthrew him discovered Assad’s drug operation when Assad fled to Russia after destroying his country in a civil war and supplying drugs to his own compatriots, destroying his own countries population.
