Damascus — In a distant nook outdoors Damascus, a now deserted potato chip manufacturing unit has shone a light-weight on one of many ousted Bashar al-Assad regime’s many darkish, however open secrets and techniques.
A CBS Information crew gained entry to the location, discovering a storeroom lined with hydrochloric acid and acetic acid on an industrial scale, that are precursor chemical compounds wanted to make Captagon, some of the fashionable avenue medicine within the Center East and past.
Ahmed Abu Yakin is with Syria’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, one of many main groups in charge of the country after Assad fled on Dec. 8. Yakin says this large underground stash of Captagon was discovered simply days after the insurgent group’s takeover. The tablets stuffed into massive stacks of family volt regulator kits prepared for cargo.
Sometimes called “poor man’s cocaine,” Captagon is a extremely addictive amphetamine-type stimulant.
“We really feel unhealthy for the younger individuals who have been hooked on it,” Yakin mentioned. “The Assad regime was destroying a era and could not care much less. They solely cared about getting cash.”
And that cash is staggering. Analysts estimate the Assad regime raked in $5 billion per yr from the commerce, dwarfing Syria’s official funds and making it a significant lifeline for the bankrupted state. The drug prices simply pennies to make however can promote for as much as $20 for a single pill. The haul seen on the deserted manufacturing unit is doubtlessly price tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars}.
For years, neighboring nations accused Assad’s Syria of being the world’s essential provider of the unlawful drug. In March 2023, the U.S. Treasury Division sanctioned a number of Syrians for his or her alleged involvement within the “harmful amphetamine”, together with two of Assad’s cousins.
“Syria has change into a worldwide chief within the manufacturing of the extremely addictive Captagon, a lot of which is trafficked by Lebanon,” said Andrea Gacki on the time, who was then-director of the Treasury Division’s Workplace of Overseas Belongings Management. “With our allies, we’ll maintain accountable those that help Bashar al-Assad’s regime with illicit drug income and different monetary signifies that allow the regime’s continued repression of the Syrian individuals.”
Now, his wildly profitable drug enterprise seems to have been crushed, alongside together with his brutal and corrupt regime. For Yakin, Captagon has no place in Syria’s future.
“We’ll destroy all of it,” Yakin mentioned. “We’ll remove something that has to do with medicine, and something that has to do with the felony Assad regime.”
