How illegal drug production in Syria could poison legal trade between Arab nations
▶ Security forces try to break up tribal, political and regime entanglements that feed the demand for Captagon
Only drug smugglers and shepherds rove across the Black Desert, a forbidding plateau of volcanic rock that stretches between Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Smugglers navigate steep slopes and prehistoric paths, ferrying drugs from Syria into the Arabian Peninsula.
The rugged, 50,000-square-kilometre desert has emerged as the centre of a booming trade in Captagon, Arab security officials told The National.
Drug trafficking from Syria through the area increased sharply this year, they said, helping to turn smuggling into a major component of the geopolitical struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
One official said that the Syrian government and its allies – including Hezbollah and Iranbacked militias – have profited from the trade through businessmen close to President Bashar Al Assad’s government.
Several of them have been implicated in busts in recent years.
A promise to control illicit drugs could become a bargaining chip for Damascus as it seeks to return to the mainstream of Middle East politics.
“The problem is that there is no security partner on the other side of the Jordanian border [with Syria],” a Jordanian official said.
Attracted by cash, the tribes who live in the border region know the territory better than anyone and easily co-operate with smugglers on both sides, he said.
While Saudi Arabia is the region’s main drugs market, the official said “don’t underestimate Captagon demand in Jordan and Israel”.
State media has increasingly reported on drug busts on Jordan’s border with Syrian government-held areas in recent months, while high-ranking Jordanian and Syrian officials have met several times to discuss a response to smuggling.
Captagon, a synthetic stimulant used throughout Syria’s conflict, has become one of the most widely consumed drugs in the region.
More efficient production techniques in Syria, as well as rising regional demand boosted by coronavirus lockdowns, contributed to the increased smuggling this year, the official said, echoing the findings of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and its World Drugs Report for 2021.
Producers of Captagon have become more closely linked to the Syrian regime, which has been hit by a breakdown in the economy, he said.
Captagon also goes by land from Syria to Saudi Arabia through the Hauran plain to the south-west of the Black Desert.
The plain is situated near Israel and extends to the outskirts of Damascus.
In April, Saudi authorities banned 400 Jordanian lorries that typically carry produce such as fruit, vegetables and meat across the plain from entering the country.
Saudi officials said they doubted the roadworthiness of the vehicles, but the ban indicated the sensitivity of the situation at the border.
In an announcement that highlighted Jordan’s anti-drug efforts, the Jordanian military said on August 7 that it foiled a smuggling attempt from Syria.
The military said it killed a smuggler in the encounter and seized narcotics.
Days earlier, Jordan’s General Security Directorate said its anti-drugs unit seized half a million Captagon pills from a lorry that arrived at Jaber, the main land crossing point between Jordan and Syria.
Drug smuggling is affecting legal inter-Arab trade and undermines relations between Saudi Arabia and states in the Levant.
Saudi Arabia banned imports of fruit and vegetables from Lebanon in April, after customs authorities seized five million pills hidden in a shipment of pomegranates.
Despite the ban on Lebanese imports, interceptions of large quantities of pills by Saudi customs officials have continued.
“Saudi Arabia’s borders are too long to seal off,” a Saudi official said, pointing to its 2,640kilometre coastline and 4,400kilometre land border.
He said the most effective way to stop the smuggling “is to have intelligence on where the next shipment is going to come from”.
Social dynamics help the underground trade across the Hauran plain prosper.
The Syrian city of Deraa, the capital of Hauran, is a few kilometres away from the Jordanian city of Ramtha, where smugglers are known as Bahhara, or sailors.
The Syrian government captured Hauran in 2018 from rebel brigades after a tacit agreement between Russia and the US.
The deal resulted in the US abandoning support for the rebels.
Hezbollah moved in, and Syrian opposition sources estimated that with the support of Iran the group oversees 4,000 militia fighters in Hauran.
Hezbollah has established itself as a main partner in Syria on the production and trafficking side, with much of the raw material for producing Captagon coming from Lebanon, two Levantine security officials said.
Hezbollah denies it has a hand in the drug trade.
Syrian opposition sources said that there were at least a dozen drug smuggling points on the border between Hauran and Jordan.
They said they counted more than 120 drug trafficking groups, comprising 1,600 men, who operate in Hauran.
At least 74 out of the 128 groups have warehouses to store Captagon, marijuana and drugs such as tramadol.
One of the sources, an officer who defected from the Syrian military, said 65 per cent of the trafficking rings were linked to Hezbollah, with the remainder linked to the Syrian army’s intelligence divisions.
Cars and tunnels are used for smuggling, as well as drug mules on foot.
Shepherds typically smuggle 25 to 35 kilograms and receive between $5,000 and $11,000 for each smuggling shipment they carry, the Syrian opposition sources said.
Syria remains the primary source of the Captagon making its way to the Gulf, they said, but certificates of origin for goods containing the pills are often forged or issued illegally in Lebanon.
Lebanon’s access to international markets and the sophistication of its business class helped to develop the war economy in Syria in the last decade, an Arab security official said.
The authorities in Beirut in June intercepted 250,000 pills hidden in water pumps bound for Saudi Arabia.
One of the Levantine officials said the pills had been hidden between compressor blades, in a sign of how far smugglers are willing to go for a profit.
While Syria goes hungry in civil war, groups such as Hezbollah find ways to traffic and store supplies of drugs such as Captagon