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Billion-dollar industry: how the Assad regime became a government drug cartel - Walla! news

2021-12-06T09:12:13.794Z


The New York Times reveals that the Syrian dictator's associates and family have based on the ruins of the war a thriving industry of capturing Captagon bullets, smuggled around the world. The operation, with the participation of Hezbollah, is under the supervision of Assad's brother and is a source of income for the elite subject to sanctions. "The regime is the cartel"


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Billion-dollar industry: This is how the Assad regime became a government drug cartel

The New York Times reveals that the Syrian dictator's associates and family have based on the ruins of the war a thriving industry of capturing Captagon bullets, smuggled around the world.

The operation, with the participation of Hezbollah, is under the supervision of Assad's brother and is a source of income for the elite subject to sanctions.

"The regime is the cartel"

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  • Syria

  • Bashar Al Assad

  • drug dealing

Guy Elster

Monday, 06 December 2021, 08:54

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Senior regime officials are looking for new ways to get rich.

Assad and Putin at a church in Damascus, last year (Photo: Reuters)

The associates and relatives of Syrian ruler Bashar Assad have set up an illegal drug industry rolling in billions of dollars, according to a New York Times investigation.

According to the report, its main product is Captagon, a type of amphetamine popular in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.



The investigation described Syria as a "new drug state on the shores of the Mediterranean," based on the ruins of a civil war that has been raging in the country for more than a decade.

The profits the regime generates from drugs are greater than its legitimate exports.

According to the report, drug factories and packing houses were set up to hide it, alongside chains smuggling the pills out of the country.



The New York Times said the investigation was based on information from law enforcement officials in ten different states and dozens of conversations with international and regional drug experts, with Syrian officials involved in the drug industry in their country and current and past U.S. officials.

One of the main destinations for smuggling.

Sami Captagon captured in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, April (Photo: Reuters)

The body responsible for most drug production and distribution is the Fourth Armored Division of the Syrian Army, an elite unit under the command of Mahar al-Assad, the younger brother of the Syrian dictator.

According to the report, among the key players are businessmen close to the regime, Hezbollah and members of the president's extended family, whose last name protects them from any punitive measures.



The civil war, which shattered Syria's economy subject to heavy Western sanctions, forced the political, military and economic elites to seek new sources of profit while circumventing the sanctions.

Thus, stimulant drugs have become the most important source of exports for the regime.

Hundreds of millions of bullets confiscated in recent years in Greece, Italy and Saudi Arabia have come mainly from a port in Syria.

Experts estimate that this is only a fraction of the total amount.

More than a quarter of a billion captagon bullets have been caught worldwide this year, 18 times more than four years earlier.



The main obstacle in the war against the Syrian drug industry is the fact that it is run by the state, which has no intention of helping to shut it down.

"The idea of ​​going and asking Syria to cooperate is absurd," Joel Raibren, the special envoy for Syria in the Trump administration, told the newspaper.

"In fact, it is the Syrian government that exports the drugs. It is not that it is looking aside while the drug cartels are doing their job. It is the cartel itself."

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Source: walla

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