‘A dirty business’: how one drug is turning Syria into a narco-state

Manufacture of Captagon is a growth industry so big it is starting to rival GDP of flatlining economy

In the summer of 2015 a businessman in the Syrian province of Latakia was approached by a powerful security chief, seeking a favour. The official wanted the merchant, an importer of medical supplies, to source large amounts of a drug called fenethylline from abroad. The regime, he said, would readily buy the lot.

After an internet search, the merchant made a decision. He left his home that same week, first sending his wife and children to exile, then following after, scrounging what he could from his businesses for a new start. I know what they were asking me to do," he said from his new home in Paris. They wanted the main ingredient for Captagon. And that drug is a dirty business."