Captagon trafficking has shifted to Sudan and Yemen

ZOOM

Since Bashar al-Assad's departure in December 2024, Syria has been striving to erase its image as a “narco-state” forged by a decade of industrial-scale Captagon production. The new authorities are making numerous announcements: laboratories dismantled and record seizures, such as the recent interception of 11 million pills in the province of Homs and 12 million near Damascus. Despite this display and growing international pressure, trafficking has not disappeared, but has fragmented and shifted, finding new hotspots from Sudan to Yemen, via Iraq and Lebanon.

The new Syrian administration is leading an offensive against the remnants of the previous regime and crime syndicates, with 230 million pills seized since the end of Assad's rule, a dramatic increase over the previous year. However, according to the UN, the country remains a hub for Captagon, particularly due to its territorial division and porous borders. Extreme poverty, which affects nine out of ten Syrians, fuels this trafficking, while the economy struggles to recover and the state attempts to attract investment and international cooperation.

The security strategy dominates, without sufficient social or health responses. The fight against local consumption remains marginal, hampered by a lack of infrastructure and health professionals. Experts insist on the need for international cooperation and the exchange of information and practices to counter increasingly mobile criminal networks.

Trafficking, stimulated by constant demand in the Gulf market, has reconfigured itself geographically. Production sites are now multiplying outside Syria's borders: Sudan and Yemen, for example, are home to new laboratories, taking advantage of a fragile security situation and civil conflicts that facilitate the activities of traffickers. Some equipment discovered in Sudan shows direct links to Syria, via front companies or similar industrial techniques.

In Yemen, production extends across territories controlled by both rebels and other factions, illustrating the diversification of trafficking. Despite Assad's ouster, these new channels ensure the resilience of the Captagon trade, now spread across several countries and actors, and pose new challenges to regional anti-narcotics efforts. RFI

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