Damascus – In a remote corner outside Damascus, a now-abandoned potato chip factory has shed light on one of the Bashar al-Assad is gone The regime has many dark, but open secrets.
A CBS News crew accessed the site, finding a store lined with industrial-grade hydrochloric acid and acetic acid, which are precursor chemicals that must be produced. Captainone of the most popular street drugs in the Middle East and beyond.
Ahmed Abu Yakin is with Syria Hayat Tahrir al-Shamor HTS, one of the the main organizations in charge of the country after Assad fled December 8. Yakin says this large underground stash of Captagon was discovered just days after the rebel group took over. The pills were stuffed into large stacks of household voltage regulation kits ready for delivery.
Often referred to as “poor man's cocaine,” Captagon is a highly addictive amphetamine-type stimulant.
“We feel bad for the young people who were used to it,” Yakin said. “The Assad regime was destroying a generation and they didn't care. They only cared about making money.”
And that money is amazing. Analysts believe that the Assad regime has taken in $5 billion a year from the trade, negatively impacting Syria's official budget and making it a vital lifeline for the broken state. The drug costs only pennies to make but can be sold for up to $20 for a single tablet. The attraction seen at the abandoned factory could be worth tens of millions of dollars.
For years, neighboring countries have accused Assad in Syria of being the world's main supplier of the illegal drug. In March 2023, the US Treasury Department sanctioned several Syrians for alleged involvement in the “dangerous amphetamine”, including two of Assad's cousins.
“Syria has become a global leader in the production of the highly addictive Captagon, much of which is traded through Lebanon,” said Andrea Gacki at the time, then director of the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. “Together with our allies, we will hold accountable those who support the Bashar al-Assad regime with illegal drug revenue and other financial means that allow the regime to control the Syrian people.”
Now, his lucrative drug business appears to have been crushed, along with his brutal and corrupt regime. For Yakin, Captagon has no place in Syria's future.
“We'll destroy it all,” Yakin said. “We will eliminate anything related to drugs, and anything related to the Assad criminal regime.”
