In April 2021, customs officers in the Saudi city of Jeddah searched a shipment of Lebanese pomegranates.
Hidden inside the fruit were more than five million round, beige Captagon pills — illegal amphetamines.
It was the latest in a long line of interceptions in recent years in which law enforcement officers in the kingdom have stopped millions of pills and tonnes of drugs from being smuggled in.
But for Saudi Arabia, it was the final straw.
The kingdom announced a ban on imported fruits and vegetables from Lebanon, dealing a devastating blow to farmers already suffering due to the country’s economic collapse and sending a shock wave through the region.
Over the past decade, Captagon has spread across the Middle East and has become one of the most highly consumed narcotics.
It gained infamy and near-mythical status in the early years of the Syrian war as the drug of choice for militants belonging to groups such as ISIS.
Fighters popped the pills on the battlefield, with the drugs seemingly giving them superhuman strength as they fuelled them to fight for days without sleep or food. ISIS took over large areas of Syria and Iraq in 2013 and 2014 and ruled an area the size of the UK.
Far from the battlefields, Captagon also found favour.
Today, experts and officials say Captagon has become the most popular recreational drug in the Arabian peninsula.
In this week's Beyond the Headlines, we delve into a major investigation by The National into the Middle East’s Captagon crisis.
Our reporters in six countries spent months tracing the drug from Syrian producers to Lebanese smugglers to Saudi and UAE customs official, unravelling a game of cat and mouse that is harming thousands across the region as it enriches warlords and gunmen.
We unearthed some of the more creative ways traffickers smuggle drugs in the region, from hidden compartments to Bedouin herders, even as the Covid pandemic closed borders
We’ll go inside Saudi Arabia’s crackdown on Captagon smuggling and find out how customs officials in Dubai have been able to intercept drug shipments using state-of-the-art technology.
And we’ll speak to experts trying to make sense of the scale of the Captagon trade in the Middle East, where data is hard to come by and even talking about addiction is often taboo.
Hosted by James Haines-Young
Produced by Arthur Scott-Geddes, Arthur Eddyson and Ayesha Khan
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
BUNDESLIGA FIXTURES
Friday (all kick-offs UAE time)
Hertha Berlin v Union Berlin (10.30pm)
Saturday
Freiburg v Werder Bremen (5.30pm)
Paderborn v Hoffenheim (5.30pm)
Wolfsburg v Borussia Dortmund (5.30pm)
Borussia Monchengladbach v Bayer Leverkusen (5.30pm)
Bayern Munich v Eintracht Frankfurt (5.30pm)
Sunday
Schalke v Augsburg (3.30pm)
Mainz v RB Leipzig (5.30pm)
Cologne v Fortuna Dusseldorf (8pm)
The past Palme d'Or winners
2018 Shoplifters, Hirokazu Kore-eda
2017 The Square, Ruben Ostlund
2016 I, Daniel Blake, Ken Loach
2015 Dheepan, Jacques Audiard
2014 Winter Sleep (Kış Uykusu), Nuri Bilge Ceylan
2013 Blue is the Warmest Colour (La Vie d'Adèle: Chapitres 1 et 2), Abdellatif Kechiche, Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux
2012 Amour, Michael Haneke
2011 The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick
2010 Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Lung Bunmi Raluek Chat), Apichatpong Weerasethakul
2009 The White Ribbon (Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte), Michael Haneke
2008 The Class (Entre les murs), Laurent Cantet
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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Shooting Ghosts: A U.S. Marine, a Combat Photographer, and Their Journey Back from War by Thomas J. Brennan and Finbarr O’Reilly
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: BorrowMe (BorrowMe.com)
Date started: August 2021
Founder: Nour Sabri
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: E-commerce / Marketplace
Size: Two employees
Funding stage: Seed investment
Initial investment: $200,000
Investors: Amr Manaa (director, PwC Middle East)
Profile of Whizkey
Date founded: 04 November 2017
Founders: Abdulaziz AlBlooshi and Harsh Hirani
Based: Dubai, UAE
Number of employees: 10
Sector: AI, software
Cashflow: Dh2.5 Million
Funding stage: Series A
BUNDESLIGA FIXTURES
Saturday, May 16 (kick-offs UAE time)
Borussia Dortmund v Schalke (4.30pm)
RB Leipzig v Freiburg (4.30pm)
Hoffenheim v Hertha Berlin (4.30pm)
Fortuna Dusseldorf v Paderborn (4.30pm)
Augsburg v Wolfsburg (4.30pm)
Eintracht Frankfurt v Borussia Monchengladbach (7.30pm)
Sunday, May 17
Cologne v Mainz (4.30pm),
Union Berlin v Bayern Munich (7pm)
Monday, May 18
Werder Bremen v Bayer Leverkusen (9.30pm)
