Bashar Assad is not only a torturer and murderer of those Syrians who oppose his despotic rule, responsible for the death of millions of Syrians. He is also the world’s largest drug trafficker. His ally Hezbollah is not only a terror organization that holds the Lebanese people in thrall as it tries to murder Israeli civilians, but, like Assad, it is a huge drug trafficker. However, both Assad and Hezbollah have seen their drug businesses suffer during this latest war between Israel and Hezbollah.
More on their drug-trafficking difficulties can be found here: “Israel, Hezbollah war disrupts Syria’s lucrative Captagon trade,” by Rizik Alabi, Jerusalem Post, November 17, 2024:
Syria’s illegal drug trade, a critical economic pillar for President Bashar Assad’s regime, is under threat as the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah disrupts the production and smuggling of Captagon, an illicit stimulant wildly popular across the Middle East. The weakening of Hezbollah, a key ally and facilitator in the drug industry, could lead to significant economic repercussions for the Syrian government.
Captagon, a brand name for the synthetic stimulant fenethylline, has become a major source of revenue for Syria. The country is currently the world’s largest producer of Captagon, with Syrian drug trafficking reaching nearly three times the value of the combined drug trade of Mexican cartels, according to Syrian economic journalist Samir Tawil….
In fact, almost all of Syria’s money from exports comes from the sale of Captagon and other illegal drugs. The Syrian regime produces 80%. of the world’s Captagon. It the largest drug trafficker in the world, its revenues from drugs far outstripping those of all of the Mexican cartels put together. And it is members of Hezbollah who bring the drugs out of Syria by sea, from the port of Latakia to consumers in Europe, and by air, from the Beirut airport, and by land through Jordan, to the rich Arab states of the Gulf where there is a large market of young, bored, disaffected, and above all deep-pocketed consumers annually ingesting tens of millions of Captagon pills.
The drug trade in Syria is overseen by high-ranking officials and military units, notably the 4th Armored Division led by Maher Assad, the president’s brother, and his deputy Ghassan Bilal. Both have been implicated in facilitating drug production and smuggling.
In Syria, where eighty percent of the world’s Captagon is produced, the business is a family affair, with Bashar Assad’s brother Maher and two of his cousins overseeing the operations to produce, and then to safely smuggle, hundreds of millions of the pills. The numbers of pills produced, and their value, are breathtaking. In just one seizure, 84 million Captagon pills produced at just one factory in Latakia, Syria, worth an estimated $1.2 billion, were seized at the Italian port of Salerno. There are dozens of Captagon factories al over Syria, producing billions of pills. In another seizure at about the same time as that at Salerno, this one in Malaysia, 95 million pills were seized.
In 2021, during the trial of Hassan Muhammad Daqou, a Syrian-Lebanese drug trafficker known as the “King of Captagon,” evidence emerged of conversations between Daqou and Bilal discussing smuggling drugs across the Syria-Lebanon border.
It is that border area between Syria and Lebanon which has been heavily bombed by the IDF, trying to interdict the movement of Iranian weapons through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon. These attacks also make the task of Captagon smugglers using the same routes more dangerous. The IDF does not always distinguish trucks of weapons from trucks of Captagon. And there is reason to believe that the IDF also knowingly attacks the drug smugglers, in order to deprive both Syria and Hezbollah of revenues they use to pay for weapons to be used against the Jewish state.
Is the IDF, in vigorously bombing Hezbollah weapons depots, at the same time bombing Captagon supplies that are stored in the same places as its weapons? Or might the Captagon be kept at command-and-control centers, another IDF target?
The Syrians are not doing their fellow Arabs any good. They are drug traffickers to the bored rich kids of the Gulf. They produce 80% of the world’s Captagon, but do not sell it only to the Infidels in Europe and North America. Much of that production goes to young men in the Arab states of the Gulf,, with Saudi Arabia taking the lion’s share. Hezbollah earns large sums by smuggling the Captagon out of Syria, either by ship through the port of Latakia, thence to Europe, or — more often — by land to the largest market for the drug, which consists of young men in the rich oil states.
Now the IDF has been bombing the Syrian port of Latakia, in an attempt to interdict Iranian weapons from being unloaded there and then taken by truck to Hezbollah bases in Lebanon. That bombing also makes the port dangerous for those who have used it to smuggle Captagon out of Syria by ship. The IDF also bombs the land routes that are used both for smuggling Iranian weapons, via Syria, to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and for smuggling Captagon to the Gulf Arab states.
If the main smuggling routes out of Syria to Hezbollah, whose members act as drug “mules” carrying the Captagon to the Gulf market, continue to be attacked so relentlessly by the IDF, then both Syria and Hezbollah stand to lose tens of billions of dollars. The Syrian economy would collapse. Hezbollah, too, will be unable to pay for new weapons to replace those destroyed by the IDF. Iran, worried about an Israeli attack, won’t want to draw down from its own arsenal to supply weapons to Hezbollah as it has done so freely in the past. Hezbollah will also be unable to pay its operatives. Some have already quit the organization over a failure to be paid. Those are both consummations devoutly to be wished.
Taffy says
I was wondering how Assad was financing his government through years of civil war. Syria made $57 billion in 2022 from the sale of captagon.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
During that civil war, he was bankrolled by Iran, which wanted a land bridge to Hizbullah in Lebanon. Also the Russians, who at the time weren’t as close to Turkey as they are now, wanted that port in Latakia in Syria, which would be their outlet to the Mediterranean and beyond. Essentially, it was a combination of Hizbullah and Iranian ground power and Russian air power that salvaged his regime, even while other long time strongmen in the region, like Hosni Mubarak, Muammar Gadaffi, Ben Ali were all toppled
That said, bad as Assad is, he’s not the worst that Syria could have had, and Israeli silence on Syria during that war bore that out. His alternatives would have been the Syrian muslim brotherhood – again tied to Hamas, Ja’abhat al Nusra, al Qaeda’s front in Syria and finally ISIS, as well as some Qatari and Saudi backed militias. It’s why it’s just as well that Iran and Hizbullah prevailed there
gravenimage says
Drug Traffickers Syria and Hezbollah Now Hurting
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Great to hear!
Not only is illegal drug use foolish and terribly harmful, it also so often funds crime and even Jihad terror.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Otoh, as this story suggests, it’s mainly being consumed by the rich Gulf Arab people. While MbS is trying to reform his country, the spoilt populace in both his country and his neighbors are blowing their stash on not dawa, not jihad but on Captagon. Essentially destroying them, while funding Syria
Given the collapse of Hizbullah and the near-imminent collapse of Iran, the Assad clan would do well to use that money to just reconstruct their country from the civil war, rather than blow it on funding Hizbullah or rockets against Israel
gravenimage says
Agreed, Infidel–but so often Muslims spend their ill gotten gains on waging Jihad terrror, especially against Jews.
Stive says
Been hoping for a long time someone would expose the hezbolla-assad drug kingdom. Assad never won his rigged elections as the sunni majority hated Assad and the sunnis are most of the refugees internally or externally. He is not the legitimate ruler due to rigged elections.
Also opposite of the false narratives, Assad hates christians. What few do not understand is assad is an alawite that were 10% of syrians. To rule over the sunni majority, Assad protected minorities like shites, Druse, christians, Kurds etc in a deal that they keep him in power over the sunnis.
When Israel recklessly pulled out of south Lebanon under the horrid ehud Barak, Israel gave refuge to christian officers and their families, but thousands of low rank christians were rounded up by hezbolla and trucked to Syria where Assad exterminated these christians as these christians weren’t the Syrian christians he needed to stay in power
࿗Infidel࿘ says
In past years, Hugh has spelt out what constitutes Ba’ath party politics in Syria, and formerly in Iraq. Essentially, the Ba’ath Party is a socialist party that tries to pivot away from islam and towards Arab nationalism so that non-muslim groups like Christian-Arabs, Druze, et al are included. But since the majority sect in any Arab country wouldn’t want this as they’d stand to be the winners if the country is an islamic republic, they’re not included in the Ba’athist plan, but rather, their opposition is
Which is why in Iraq, where a majority of the muslims are shi’a, the Ba’athists were mainly sunni, but added to their ranks Christians, Yazidis, Turkmen and others, but not shi’a Arabs. Whereas in Syria which is mainly sunni, the Ba’athists were the Alawites, and padded along the Druze, other shi’a, Christians and anyone else. Only exception in both cases were the Kurds, who have their own nationalist aspirations
Bottom line is that this regime is now pretty much propped up by the Russians, who having lost Iraq and Libya as major customers, don’t wanna lose their last customer Syria. Other major prop was Hizbullah. But given how the latter is getting destroyed, and the unrest in Iran, Assad will have to figure out a new way to stay in power. But I’m not sanguine about what will happen if he gets overthrown
Stive says
Been hoping for a long time someone would expose the hezbolla-assad drug kingdom. Assad never won his rigged elections as the sunni majority hated Assad and the sunnis are most of the refugees internally or externally. He is not the legitimate ruler due to rigged elections.
Also opposite of the false narratives, Assad hates christians. What few do not understand is assad is an alawite that were 10% of syrians. To rule over the sunni majority, Assad protected minorities like shites, Druse, christians, Kurds etc in a deal that they keep him in power over the sunnis.
When Israel recklessly pulled out of south Lebanon under the horrid ehud Barak, Israel gave refuge to christian officers and their families, but thousands of low rank christians were rounded up by hezbolla and trucked to Syria where Assad exterminated these christians as these christians weren’t the Syrian christians he needed to stay in power forever.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
There is one major difference b/w Bashar Assad and his father, who preceded him before 2000. When Hafez al Assad was in power, he projected Syrian power outwards, particularly in Lebanon, which contributed greatly to destabilizing that country, and only withdrew troops towards the end of his life. Whereas since Bashar Assad came to power, and particularly after the civil war, he has been inward looking, and particularly content in monetizing the land bridge that would exist b/w Iran and Hizbullah, as well as giving Russia an outlet to the Mediterranean from Latakia
Now, w/ Hizbullah almost destroyed, Iran tottering w/ rumors about the condition of Khamenei and the Russians pulling not just their own troops but also Syrian troops if they can for the war in Ukraine, Assad is pretty much on his own. But from what I recall reading, he had patched up w/ the Emirates and the Saudis after that war, even while their differences w/ Qatar and Turkey rose to the surface. The best thing he can do once all that happens is make peace w/ Israel, and make Latakia an oil port to the Mediterranean, shipping Saudi and maybe even Iraqi oil there. While continuing to crack down on muslim brotherhood elements in his country
Gurek says
I think the Emirates, the Saudis, and Egypt are going to help Assad to rebuild the country. Aren’t these three countries cracking down on Muslim Brotherhood? Even though they are Sunnis, I hope they back Assad against the neo-Ottomanist threaths of Erdogan.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I believe that that’s what they were doing when Turkey was trying to carve up Syrian real estate, like Idlib. They preferred an Arab if Alawite Syria to a Turkish though sunni Syria, & so decided to support Assad. However, since then, in the last 4 years, Turkey has resolved its differences w/ Syria, but in the meantime, so has Saudi Arabia resolved differences w/ Iran
I think it will be interesting to see how long those alliances last once Trump returns to power
gravenimage says
The Sunnis are not apt to help Shia and Alawite Syria.
abu taleb says
The Islamic holy war for allah is many cases is financed by crime activities like drug business, robbery, con etc. And the holy war always involves rapes, robberies and tortures not just simply killing the enemies.
So, what is holy about the Islamic jihad? It is holy only for the evil people, because allah itself is a manifestation of evil.
terry says
Yep, and all these shady and crooked operations are joined in those profits from shady legal deals to criminal activities on street corners, unto the halls of power in the Elite Globalist of the West, Marxism, and Islam- the love of physcopathic behaviors rules them!
Jamie James says
If you can get hold of it, watch a true docu called Hezbollah Inc. see how on the day of exposing them Obama scuppered years of work.