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In Suwayda, Captagon barons survive the fall of Assad
Suwayda, in southern Syria, is a hub for the trafficking of Captagon, a synthetic drug that has flooded the Middle East for a decade and was the economic mainstay of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. After his ousting, Assad’s successors promised an end to this illegal trade. But the reality on the ground is quite different. From local militias associated with the new government to smugglers and alleged accomplices, the end of Captagon seems an illusion.
Credit: AFP
- Even after the fall of Bashar al-Assad two months ago, Captagon pills are still easy to come by.
- In the Druze city of Suwayda, the al-Karama militia, which is ready to merge into the new regime’s unified military body, remains ambiguous about trafficking.
- On the border with Jordan, smuggling is still visible despite the Jordanian army's anti-drug operations in Syria.
By Paloma de Dinechin
February 8, 2024
Forbidden Stories team
Director of publications : Laurent Richard
Editor : Frédéric Metezeau
Publication Coordination : Louise Berkane
Video : Anouk Aflalo Doré
Fact-check : Emma Wilkie
Copy editor :
François Burkard, Mashal Butt
Translators : Amy Thorpe
Communication : Alix Loyer
“The first time I took a quarter of Captagon, I felt like a viking capable of defeating 10 men in battle.”
“Capty,” also nicknamed “Captain Majid” as a reference to the wide-eyed heroes in the Japanese cartoon Captain Tsubasa (Majid in Arabic), is nothing new for this 27-year-old man who did not share his name. Nor are the drug’s side effects.
In Suwayda, a Druze city south of Damascus near the Jordanian border, he worked in a kolabat, or a roadside stall. These stalls sell hot drinks and petrol, but inside some, “nothing is forbidden.” Captagon dealers freely sell their little beige pills, counterfeits of a psychoactive drug originally designed to combat fatigue and depression. He would take them twice a week to get through his nights at work.
Five minutes and less than $1 for a pill
Even after the fall of Bashar al-Assad on December 8, 2024, Syrian journalists still face great difficulties in investigating Captagon trafficking. Three of them entrusted Forbidden Stories with their findings so that their investigations could be continued.
The new authorities from the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have promised to put an end to Captagon trafficking, which was a mainstay of Assad regime’s economy since the start of the civil war in 2011. But in Suwayda, nothing has changed, according to the man at the stall.
“Before the regime fell, I had to walk 10 meters to buy Captagon,” he said. “Today, I have to walk 20 or 25.”
On January 11, Forbidden Stories accompanied him to buy a Captagon pill. He went to a kolabat unannounced and returned five minutes later with the pill in hand. “You see, nothing has changed,” he said. The price: 10,000 Syrian pounds (around $0.70), which is the average price for a pack of cigarettes.
A soldier from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group holds out Captagon pills from a laboratory discovered in Yafour (December 2024). / Credit: AFP
In Suwayda, at least 40 kolabats flourish. Our “capty” addict identified the majority of them on a busy street to the east of the city, leading to the municipal stadium where traffic is particularly intense.
At the same time, the new Syrian authorities are promoting their fight against Captagon by using social networks to circulate the discovery and destruction of warehouses belonging to the deposed regime. An agreement signed on January 7 with Jordan promised to put an end to this trafficking, with HTS Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani pledging, “When it comes to Captagon and drug smuggling, we promise it is over and won’t return. We are ready to cooperate on this extensively.”
A soldier from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group shows a Captagon manufacturing laboratory discovered in Yafour (December 2024). / Credit: AFP
Caroline Rose, a specialist in Captagon trafficking at the American think-tank New Lines Institute, acknowledges real efforts to dismantle major production laboratories. But many challenges remain.
“Small, mobile and discreet clandestine laboratories are much harder to detect,” Rose said. “In a border region like Suwayda, which attracts a lot of smugglers, the logistical and geographical challenges are immense. Do these authorities have sophisticated surveillance systems or equipment to effectively secure the borders? For the time being, it seems they don’t.”
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“They don’t attack the traffickers: they eliminate the competition.”
Since the toppling of the regime, the province of Suwayda has remained under the control of local militias. The most powerful of them is al-Karama, the “dignity” militia, which has pledged allegiance to HTS. According to several sources interviewed by Forbidden Stories, while it is officially opposed to Captagon trafficking, its role in the trade is ambiguous.
One man Forbidden Stories spoke to formed an anti-Captagon militia and was imprisoned in 2020 by the Assad regime. “They don’t attack the traffickers: they eliminate the competition,” he said of al-Karama. “In prison, I saw them arrest small-time dealers and transfer them to regime-controlled prisons. Assad and al-Karama are as bad as each other.”
In 2022, al-Karama claimed responsibility for the capture of Raji Falhout, the leader of an armed group accused of trafficking and linked to Syrian military intelligence. After the siege of his home, Falhout mysteriously disappeared and Captagon presses were discovered in his headquarters. Claims that al-Karama was “cleansing the town” circulated in the media, but some local journalists pushed back. “Al-Karama caught him, and then he disappeared.,” one of them said, having followed the case.
A young member of al-Karama also has similar suspicions. When he discovered a clandestine Captagon workshop in 2023, “Abou Hassan, the leader of al-Karama, forbade us to intervene.”
Despite his doubts, he remains in the militia to protect himself. “Al-Karama was the most powerful group under Assad, and it still is.” According to this member, the fall of Assad only “temporarily curbed trafficking, without eliminating the drug barons. Nothing has changed here.”
As a result, the Mazhar family in Suwayda has maintained power: followed by over 7,000 people on its Facebook page and once closely linked to the overthrown Syrian regime. Several of its members joined an association founded by former First Lady Asma al-Assad to support the relatives of slain soldiers. According to Syria Direct, the Mazhar family seems to have played a key role in Captagon trafficking, with the help of its connections to the regime.
In 2013, a rumor circulated throughout Suwayda, suggesting a treasure discovery behind the Mazhars’ sudden enrichment. Today, the family owns several villas in the city center.
“They run a Captagon factory 7 kilometers from their neighborhood and are actively involved in trafficking,” said a local journalist, who has not published this information out of fear for his family. “If you have a problem, go and see them. They can solve anything. During the war, there were kidnappings linked to the Captagon gangs, and they were the ones who negotiated releases,” he added. Several other sources were able to confirm this.
Forbidden Stories visited the family’s district in the old town of Suwayda, a place frozen in time. Modern buildings give way to traditional stone houses, creating the impression of a village isolated from the rest of the city. The Mazhars, considered supporters of Assad, live under protection. At the entrance to their stronghold, a tractor blocks the road and low walls obstruct other access points, while spotters watch every move. Despite the allegations against them, none of the family members have been arrested.
Dozens of containers of Captagon, in a laboratory found in Yafour by soldiers of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group after the collapse of the Syrian regime. / Credit: AFP
Jordanian raids against Captagon trafficking
The role of Assad’s regime in the introduction and expansion of Captagon in Syria is central. Khaled, a former soldier in Regiment 405 whose name has been changed, told us, “In 2013, a comrade handed me a pill and said, ‘You look tired, take this.’ It was so common that one of my colleagues asked for some in a pharmacy, thinking it was a conventional medication.”
The soldiers figured these pills came from enemy seizures, unaware of the fact that the regime was already producing Captagon on a large scale to finance its war against rebel groups, despite international sanctions. Its operations relied on the 4th Armored Division, commanded by Assad’s brother Maher al-Assad, to control smuggling routes and production infrastructures with the support of affiliated militias. Suwayda became a hotbed for Captagon trafficking, which spread to the province’s margins, notably along the Jordanian border.
A local woman in the village of Shaab facing the destruction caused by bombing raids to combat cross-border trafficking, in the immediate aftermath (January 14, 2025). (Credit: Paloma de Dinechin)
Since Assad’s ousting, attempts to smuggle drugs into Jordan still continue. In the Bedouin villages that make up the region, bombardments—likely Jordanian—take place regularly. On January 13, 2025, two strikes targeted the desert village of Shaab, supposedly a key staging post in the Captagon trade. The day after the bombing, local Bedouin sheikh Mohammed Awad al-Ramthan, interviewed on-site by Forbidden Stories, defended his community. “We can’t monitor almost 200 kilometers of [the] border,” he said. “Yes, some young people are involved in trafficking, but we don’t know them, and they deal in old pills.”
Sheikh Mohammed Awad al-Ramthan, head of the Bedouin community in the village of Shaab. (Credit: Paloma de Dinechin)
In these remote areas, masked faces and cars with tinted windows are a testament to a thriving underground trade, despite air raids and arrests. Before any photo was taken, the local journalist accompanying Forbidden Stories in Syria always warned his interlocutors when they appeared in frame: “Cover your face if you work in the Captagon business.” This was the case for three quarters of the young men Forbidden Stories met.
On January 20, the “Gathering of Southern Clans” issued a communique announcing “the establishment of patrols to prevent the use of their towns’ lands for trafficking or smuggling operations.”
Among the figures targeted by the Jordanian authorities in their fight against Captagon, Faris Simoa stands out. Originally from Arman, near Shaab, he is a livestock trader with several smuggling convictions from the 1990s. Simoa agreed to talk to Forbidden Stories for the first time, in a private room at Suwayda’s most upscale cafe. Sporting a black jacket and a red and white keffiyeh held together by a black agal, he spoke loudly. Several times, Simoa put his hand to his heart, as if to testify to his innocence. He denied any involvement in Captagon trafficking, asserting that the Suwayda province is unaffected by the trade and that his farms contain only agricultural produce and livestock. Simoa moves about freely in Suwayda and claims to be “friends” with the Mazhar family and the leader of al-Karama, who he swears are innocent of trafficking.
“We don’t have the power to stop [the Mazhars],” an influential member of al-Karama told us. “Their power guarantees social peace. We’re one big Druze family.”
Since the fall of Assad’s regime, no arrests have been made and no Captagon production sites have been discovered in relation to this “big Druze family” in Suwayda. In January 2024, al-Karama destroyed a single kolabat, and no others have been targeted since.
Back in Damascus, the shadow of Captagon remains omnipresent, even in everyday life. At a cafe, a waiter was heard calling out, “Are you tired? Take a capty. Would you like a few? I’ll bring you some right away.”
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