The captagon trafficking ring: How Assad turned Syria into a narco state

Last Update: 2024-12-17 19:00:06 - Source: France 24

Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime, rebel HTS fighters in Syria have found huge stockpiles of an illegal drug called captagon in several warehouses in and around the capital Damascus. The Assad family was at the head of a vast narcotics trafficking ring, smuggling piles of the drug into several Middle Eastern countries – including the UAE, Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia – and essentially turning Syria into a narco state. FRANCE 24's Julia Sieger tells us more.