captagon
Captagon’s Legacy
Over four months after the fall of Assad, Syria is still struggling with the pervasive Captagon trade. Despite the new authorities vowing to dismantle drug networks, the illicit business continues, fueled by economic hardship and lingering connections from the previous regime.
Assad’s Captagon Wager
The Assad regime’s manipulation of the Captagon trade, combining industrial-scale production with carefully crafted counternarcotics rhetoric, staged seizures and inflated statistics, gave the illusion of a crackdown. But the regime’s reliance on Captagon to reinforce its hold on power prompted a backlash from neighboring states and hastened its collapse.
Inside Syria’s Captagon Industry
In Douma, near Damascus, a once-thriving “Captain Corn” chips factory has been revealed as a vast Captagon production hub — one of many that fueled a multibillion-dollar illicit trade that helped sustain Bashar al-Assad’s regime for years.