Exposing the UAE’s Role in Smuggling Captagon from Syria to the Gulf
Documents and correspondence uncovered at a Captagon production facility in Syria, following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, have revealed that companies linked to the Emirati regime were involved in the export of Captagon to the Gulf.
The papers indicated that the Captagon trade was concealed under the guise of fruit and vegetable shipments, facilitated by Emirati companies based in Dubai, including “Ariha General Trading Company.”
In a military warehouse near Damascus, boxes of Captagon pills were found alongside these documents. It was revealed that Maher al-Assad, the brother of the deposed president, personally oversaw the operation.
In recent years, Saudi authorities have periodically reported intercepting millions of Captagon pills smuggled within shipments of fruit from Lebanon through the Batha border crossing between Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Lebanese factions accuse Hezbollah of orchestrating the smuggling of drugs from Syria into Lebanon, which are then transported to the Gulf via fruit and vegetable exports, impacting the enforcement of various bans on the substance.
The rise of the Captagon trade in the region coincided with Syria’s political and economic collapse in 2011 and Lebanon’s unstable situation. Captagon has since become a significant part of the Syrian regime’s economy, generating billions of dollars annually.
In 2020, Syria’s Captagon trade was valued at no less than $3.46 billion, with the broader Middle Eastern market exceeding $5 billion in 2021, as reported by the Newlines Institute for Research. The “Political and Economic Networks Observatory,” which tracks the Captagon trade, estimates the Assad regime earned an average of $2.4 billion annually from the narcotic between 2020 and 2022.
It is believed that smuggling operations through Lebanon nearly doubled the revenue generated by Syria’s direct exports.
The “Captagon Law” introduced in 2023 linked the increasing production and use of Captagon to the Assad regime, which the US considers a “security threat.” As a result, six individuals, including two of Assad’s cousins, were sanctioned by the US Treasury for their role in the Captagon trade.
According to experts, Syria, which the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) described as a “global leader” in Captagon production, was responsible for 80 percent of the global supply of the drug.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime identified Syria and Lebanon as the primary exit points for Captagon shipments, which are sent to the Gulf either directly or via intermediary regions, with full cooperation from Emirati-linked companies.
