After Assad: Syria’s Captagon empire collapses, but the drug trade adapts |
For more than a decade, Syria stood at the center of one of the world’s most lucrative illicit drug trades. Captagon-a powerful amphetamine-like synthetic stimulant-became not only a regional scourge but also a financial lifeline for the Assad regime as war, sanctions, and economic collapse hollowed out the formal economy. Now, according to a new research brief from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), that entrenched system has been dramatically disrupted following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in December 2024.
The UNODC assessment marks the most comprehensive international acknowledgment yet that Syria’s role as a global narco-hub has fundamentally changed. The report states that large-scale Captagon production has been “sharply disrupted,” with Syria’s transitional authorities dismantling dozens of laboratories and storage facilities over the past year. Yet while the epicenter of production may have been destabilized, the broader drug economy has not disappeared. Instead, it is adapting-reshaping trafficking routes, diversifying substances, and testing the limits of regional cooperation.
Captagon’s ascent was inseparable from Syria’s descent into war. As the conflict dragged on, the Assad regime and its allied networks increasingly relied on illicit revenue streams to survive. UNODC data show that between January 2019 and November 2025, approximately 80 percent of all Captagon seized in the Middle East originated in Syria. Production facilities operated on an industrial scale, capable of manufacturing millions of tablets, often concealed within legitimate-looking factories or agricultural facilities.
Over time, Syria effectively became the world’s largest Captagon producer. Smuggling routes extended through Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq, funneling the drug toward Gulf markets........