What Assad’s fall has revealed about Syria’s trade in stimulant drug Captagon
BEIRUT — Since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad, industrial-scale manufacturing facilities of the amphetamine-like stimulant Captagon have been uncovered around the country, which experts say fed a $10 billion annual global trade in the highly addictive drug. Among the locations used for manufacturing the drug were the Mazzeh air base in Damascus, a car-trading company in Latakia and a factory that once made snack chips in the Damascus suburb of Douma. Government forces seized the factory in 2018. "Assad's collaborators controlled this place. After the regime fell ... I came here and found it on fire," Firas al-Toot, the original owner of the factory, told The Associated Press. "They came at night and lit the drugs on fire but couldn't burn everything." "From here, Captagon pills emerged to…