Rising levels of amphetamine production in Lebanon and Syria have prompted the UN to call for more investigations into the illegal trade which may be connected to corrupt politicians and the militant group Hezbollah.
Thomas Pietschmann, an expert at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said Lebanon and Syria had in recent years become the region’s biggest manufacturers and exporters of amphetamine pills.
He described increasingly-sophisticated networks of laboratories making Captagon tablets that are exported to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf economies, often transiting in elaborate routes via Europe.
Captagon in the Middle East
The Vienna-based UNODC collates data on the global drugs business provided by governments, law enforcement agencies, Interpol, the World Customs Organisation and other agencies.
Captagon — also known as the “poor man’s cocaine” — has proliferated, owing to an industrial boom centred predominantly in government-held and recaptured areas of war-torn Syria.
“There have been a couple of laboratories where there’s some strong evidence that Hezbollah was involved,” Mr Pietschmann told The National.
“Can people operate [there] on a large scale without Hezbollah knowing it? No. So there must have been some kind of agreement. But it’s still difficult to say Hezbollah was organising it.”
Hezbollah, a Lebanese political party and militant group, has denied involvement in the narcotics trade, though members of the group have been slapped by US sanctions for running criminal enterprises to finance their operations.
The situation is murkier still in neighbouring Syria, where President Bashar Al Assad has regained control over much of the country after a decade-long civil war along multiple fronts against the various rebel, extremist and Kurdish forces.
At its peak, ISIS “may well” have profited from Captagon labs, said Mr Pietschmann. Records of amphetamine production in Syria often relate to areas that were taken over by several armed groups in succession, making it hard to finger anyone even if there is evidence implicating several prominent businessmen close to the regime.
“It’s very fluid, very difficult for us to find out the ultimate truth,” said Mr Pietschmann.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, trafficking in amphetamines has increased in the Middle East in recent years. Photo: Dubai Customs
Specially trained K-9 units are often used by border forces to intercept shipments. EPA
Experts believe the amount intercepted accounts for only around a tenth of the total quantity of pills being smuggled out of places like Syria and Jordan. EPA
Dubai Customs thwarted 398 attempts to smuggle drugs into the city in the first three months of this year. Photo: Dubai Customs
Captagon pills on display after being seized in Greece in 2019. EPA
Captagon became synonymous with the Syrian Civil War. AFP
The small, off-white pills have quickly become one of the most widely consumed drugs in the Middle East. EPA
Millions of Captagon pills are seized around the world each year. EPA
Captagon pills on display after a major interception of a shipment in 2009. Nicole Hill / The National
Customs officers say Captagon smugglers prefer to use sea ports rather than airports because of the size of shipping containers, enabling them to conceal larger quantities of drugs. Photo: Dubai Customs
The UNODC’s annual World Drug Report this year found the coronavirus pandemic had spurred an increase in drug use globally, especially cannabis.
In the Middle East, Captagon remains the primary concern. The pills, which take their name from a once-legal treatment for hyperactivity disorder, are typically a cocktail of fenethylline, caffeine and other uppers.
They are popular among night-workers, dieters, students cramming for exams and others in the Middle East region, and are a drug-of-choice for fighters in Syria and elsewhere, who say they sharpen wits on the battlefield.
According to the UNODC report, the Middle East accounts for nearly half of all amphetamine seizures globally between 2015-2019, the latest period for which data are available.
The most significant police raids in that period were reported by Saudi Arabia, which seized 146 million amphetamine tablets. Other major hauls were made in the UAE, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. The pill trail leads as far as Libya and Sudan.
Drug busts in Europe have linked the Middle Eastern network to the Camorra, a Mafia-style Italian crime gang. A police bust in Austria in March connected Captagon traffickers from Austria, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey.
While the Saudi ban may have prompted Lebanese officials to crack down on illicit amphetamine labs, it also hurt Lebanon's already struggling farmers. For Mr Pietschmann, blanket bans do not provide a long term solution.
“If you ban fruit, they find something else to put them in,” he said.
Instead, Middle Eastern governments should crack down harder on corrupt officials and consider dropping the death penalty for drug trafficking crimes, which blocks many European police forces from cooperating and sharing evidence with Arab counterparts, he added.
Men’s squad: Faisal Al Ketbi, Omar Al Fadhli, Zayed Al Kathiri, Thiab Al Nuaimi, Khaled Al Shehhi, Mohamed Ali Al Suwaidi, Farraj Khaled Al Awlaqi, Muhammad Al Ameri, Mahdi Al Awlaqi, Saeed Al Qubaisi, Abdullah Al Qubaisi and Hazaa Farhan
Women's squad: Hamda Al Shekheili, Shouq Al Dhanhani, Balqis Abdullah, Sharifa Al Namani, Asma Al Hosani, Maitha Sultan, Bashayer Al Matrooshi, Maha Al Hanaei, Shamma Al Kalbani, Haya Al Jahuri, Mahra Mahfouz, Marwa Al Hosani, Tasneem Al Jahoori and Maryam Al Amri
Over 500 Gazans have been evacuated to France since November 2023
Evacuations were paused after a student already in France posted anti-Semitic content and was subsequently expelled to Qatar
The Foreign Ministry launched a review to determine how authorities failed to detect the posts before her entry
Artists and researchers fall under a programme called Pause that began in 2017
It has benefited more than 700 people from 44 countries, including Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Sudan
Since the start of the Gaza war, it has also included 45 Gazan beneficiaries
Unlike students, they are allowed to bring their families to France
'Worse than a prison sentence'
Marie Byrne, a counsellor who volunteers at the UAE government's mental health crisis helpline, said the ordeal the crew had been through would take time to overcome.
“It was worse than a prison sentence, where at least someone can deal with a set amount of time incarcerated," she said.
“They were living in perpetual mystery as to how their futures would pan out, and what that would be.
“Because of coronavirus, the world is very different now to the one they left, that will also have an impact.
“It will not fully register until they are on dry land. Some have not seen their young children grow up while others will have to rebuild relationships.
“It will be a challenge mentally, and to find other work to support their families as they have been out of circulation for so long. Hopefully they will get the care they need when they get home.”
Day 1 results:
Open Men (bonus points in brackets)
New Zealand 125 (1) beat UAE 111 (3)
India 111 (4) beat Singapore 75 (0)
South Africa 66 (2) beat Sri Lanka 57 (2)
Australia 126 (4) beat Malaysia -16 (0)
Open Women
New Zealand 64 (2) beat South Africa 57 (2)
England 69 (3) beat UAE 63 (1)
Australia 124 (4) beat UAE 23 (0)
New Zealand 74 (2) beat England 55 (2)
Tonight's Chat is a series of online conversations on The National. The series features a diverse range of celebrities, politicians and business leaders from around the Arab world.
Tonight’s Chat host Ricardo Karam is a renowned author and broadcaster who has previously interviewed Bill Gates, Carlos Ghosn, Andre Agassi and the late Zaha Hadid, among others.
Intellectually curious and thought-provoking, Tonight’s Chat moves the conversation forward.
This is how many recognised sects Lebanon is home to, along with about four million citizens
450,000
More than this many Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with about 45 per cent of them living in the country’s 12 refugee camps
1.5 million
There are just under 1 million Syrian refugees registered with the UN, although the government puts the figure upwards of 1.5m
73
The percentage of stateless people in Lebanon, who are not of Palestinian origin, born to a Lebanese mother, according to a 2012-2013 study by human rights organisation Frontiers Ruwad Association
18,000
The number of marriages recorded between Lebanese women and foreigners between the years 1995 and 2008, according to a 2009 study backed by the UN Development Programme
77,400
The number of people believed to be affected by the current nationality law, according to the 2009 UN study
4,926
This is how many Lebanese-Palestinian households there were in Lebanon in 2016, according to a census by the Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue committee
