DAMASCUS: According to two security officials who spoke to AFP, Syria’s new government set fire to a sizable drug cache on Wednesday. Among the medicines was a million captagon pills, whose mass manufacturing thrived under former President Bashar Assad. During the more than 13-year civil war, Syria became the world’s largest exporter of captagon, an illegal amphetamine-like stimulant that essentially turned the country into a narco state under Assad.
A member of the security forces wearing a balaclava and asking to be identified only by his first name, Osama, said, “We found a large quantity of captagon, around one million pills.” His khaki uniform featured a “public security” emblem.
In a security compound that had once belonged to Assad’s soldiers in the Kafr Sousa neighborhood of the city, an AFP correspondent witnessed forces pour gasoline over and set fire to a cache of cannabis, the painkiller tramadol, and over 50 packets of pink and yellow captagon pills.
Saudi Arabia, which is rich in oil, has been a significant destination for captagon, which has recently inundated the illicit market throughout the area.
Another security force member, who went by Hamza, claimed that while the new government’s security forces were examining the security quarter, they stumbled onto a narcotics warehouse.
He claimed that in an effort to “protect Syrian society” and “cut off smuggling routes used by Assad family businesses,” authorities destroyed the inventories of hashish, alcohol, cannabis, and captagon.
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