Investigations
Contents
When Lebanese authorities arrested Hassan Daqqou in April 2021, the documents described by Daraj included work permits from the Syrian Fourth Division’s Security Bureau[2]. One had expired; another had not[2]. The businessman carried a connection to an institution commanded by the Syrian president’s brother[2]. What that connection allowed him to do became the central dispute in his account[2].
Daqqou described several occupations to his interrogators[2]. He was a businessman, a worker for the division’s security apparatus, a collaborator with Hezbollah during the Syrian conflict and a participant in anti-narcotics work[2]. In his telling, these roles could coexist[2]. Daraj reconstructed that account from interrogation material obtained by OCCRP[2]. It was a portrait of a man who presented access to security officials as an explanation for his activities[2].
The US Treasury offered a different account[25],[30]. In March 2023 it linked him to Fourth Division trafficking and reported protection by Hezbollah associates[25]. It connected his arrest to a shipment intercepted in Malaysia on its way to Saudi Arabia[25]. His lawyer denied involvement in that shipment, saying information on his phone had been collected to assist authorities[30].
The distance between those accounts runs through Syria’s Captagon industry. The men accused of moving drugs could also move ordinary goods, arrange services and invoke security relationships. Their value lay partly in knowing whose permission mattered. To understand the industry, it is necessary to follow that permission through the economy that war had produced.
A business before the pills
Daqqou’s account began far from industrial drug production[2]. He told investigators about agricultural work in Tfail, a border town, and helping his father trade construction materials[2]. In Beirut’s Cola area, he said, he exchanged currency, sold watches and transported people[2]. After abandoning his studies in Damascus, he helped supply nuts to pastry shops[2]. These were his recollections, reported by Daraj, rather than a verified ledger of his early life[2].
His later ventures involved fuel, property and cars[2]. He described operating 40 fuel trucks for Al-Qatirji and said the Fourth Division owed him roughly $900,000 for services[2]. He also claimed to have gathered information about customs-duty evaders in return for a share of collected fees[2]. Each assertion placed him near the point where transport met authority[2].
The division had made that point into a business[3]. A March 2023 New Lines study described checkpoints functioning as informal customs stations, extracting payments from cargo under threat of confiscation[3]. Alongside those levies operated tarfeeq, paid protection for convoys[3]. Commerce faced both an obstacle and a service sold to overcome it[3].
The study located this system at land crossings with Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, at the ports of Latakia and Tartus, and along domestic transport routes[3]. Its effects reached beyond smugglers: restrictions and fees raised costs for farmers and small businesses[3]. A driver carrying legitimate merchandise could encounter the same coercive economy that made protected illicit movement valuable[3]. The checkpoint’s power came from its position between the seller and the buyer[3]. Control of that small stretch of road allowed an armed organization to draw income from business it did not need to own[3]. Protection then became another charge attached to getting goods to market[3].
In Daqqou’s version, his relationship with the division began with escorting work in 2014 under Ghassan Bilal[2]. The credentials later described at his arrest belonged to that world[2]. They did not themselves settle the criminal allegations[2]. They showed why a story about pills also became a story about official access[2].
An old trademark, an industrial trade
The name on the tablets was older than Syria’s war[6]. Captagon had been a pharmaceutical brand containing fenetylline, sold with a two-half-moon logo[6]. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction distinguished that discontinued medicine from the illicit tablets subsequently sold under its name[6]. A familiar mark had outlived the original product[6].
That distinction matters when a photograph of a pill becomes shorthand for an entire industry[6]. The agency warned against sensational accounts of a supposedly singular terrorist drug and described major gaps in knowledge about use and harms[6]. The branding could be recognizable while the illicit product and the circumstances of its consumption varied[6].
By 2022, New Lines researchers described a shift from fragmented operations toward industrial production in regime-held Syria[11]. They identified the Gulf as the principal destination market but left open whether seizures in parts of North Africa and southern Europe reflected transit or emerging consumption[11]. A consignment’s stopping place did not necessarily reveal its final customer[11].
UNODC’s 2022 report placed Lebanon and Syria among the most frequently cited origins or departure points for amphetamine seizures in the Near and Middle East during 2016–2020, primarily in connection with Captagon[23]. Those country-level observations established a regional pattern; identifying the people who benefited required a different kind of evidence[23].
Caroline Rose, speaking to the Atlantic Council in 2023, described a spectrum of participants, including armed groups unaffiliated with Assad[14]. Regime-held territory anchored the industry, but the industry was wider than a single chain of command[14]. Its commercial connections extended into shipping and other ordinary sectors[14].
The scale made the trade difficult to dismiss[5]. The World Bank estimated the annual market value of Syrian-origin Captagon at up to $5.6 billion over 2020–2023[5]. It separately estimated annual profits for actors based in or linked to Syria at up to $1.8 billion—almost twice Syria’s licit export revenue in 2023[5]. These were estimates of different things, not an audited sum deposited with Assad or Hezbollah[5].
Market value is not the same as profit
World Bank annual estimates for Syrian-origin Captagon, 2020–2023.
For the presidency’s circle, the attraction was revenue[17]. For many people further down the chain, it was work[17]. A January 2023 INSS analysis by Carmit Valensi and Orna Mizrahi connected recruitment to poverty and weakened governance in Syria and Lebanon[17]. The protected trader and the resident looking for income occupied different positions in the same damaged economy[17].
The names behind the protection
Treasury’s March 2023 designations assigned different functions to named actors[25]. Khalid Qaddour reportedly managed revenues from Maher al-Assad’s illicit schemes[25]. Samer Kamal al-Assad oversaw Latakia production with the Fourth Division and “certain associates of Hizballah.”[25] Imad Abu Zureik, a former opposition commander, led a military-intelligence-linked militia at Nassib[25]. The account described relationships between production, money and territorial authority[25].
Britain’s coordinated action widened the commercial picture[26]. It named Mohammed Shalish as a shipping-sector figure linked to Captagon consignments from Latakia and imposed asset freezes and travel bans on listed individuals[26]. Shipping was one of the interfaces through which a Syrian enterprise could reach markets beyond Syria[26].
In October 2024, Treasury described a particularly concrete sequence involving Khaldoun Hamieh[1]. It identified him as controlling laboratories in Sayyida Zainab and working with border officials[1]. On one occasion, the department said, he helped secure passage into Syria for a vehicle carrying hundreds of kilograms of Lebanese-made Captagon[1]. Fourth Division members then helped him protect the movement of proceeds to Bilal’s office[1].
Access was part of the service
The Hamieh episode alleged by Treasury in October 2024.
A vehicle carried hundreds of kilograms of Captagon. [1]
Hamieh allegedly worked with officials to secure entry into Syria. [1]
Fourth Division members allegedly helped move proceeds to Bilal’s office. [1]
Treasury also said Hamieh sold weapons and armored vehicles to Maher and, on at least one occasion, donated nearly a million dollars to Hezbollah[1]. It did not publicly trace that donation to the particular consignment[1]. His alleged roles nevertheless illustrate the intermediary’s importance: access could serve several businesses and beneficiaries[1].
The same announcement described Raji Falhout’s gang as working with Syrian Military Intelligence and Hezbollah on kidnapping and trafficking revenues, and identified an Aleppo paper-roll factory owned by Abdellatif Hamideh as a trafficking front[1]. These were agency allegations about named actors[1]. Hezbollah had publicly denied involvement in narcotics production and trafficking, as the OCCRP-led investigation recorded[30].
The ship that crossed the network
The Noka supplied a different view of the industry[28]. According to OCCRP and IrpiMedia, the freighter left Latakia for eastern Libya on December 2, 2018[28]. Greek authorities intercepted it off Crete three days later and found hashish and Captagon[28]. The voyage connected a Syrian port, a maritime business and an alleged Libyan destination[28].
Reporters followed shipowner Taher al-Kayali through company registrations and the vessel’s acquisition through Neptunus[28]. Kayali denied involvement in drug trafficking[28]. The investigation’s significance was the commercial network it exposed around an actual intercepted shipment, rather than an assumed journey for an anonymous pill[28].
Years later, the same commercial names appeared in Washington’s response[13]. FDD’s account of the March 2024 sanctions described the designation of Kayali and Neptunus in connection with the Noka[13]. The article welcomed the measures while urging stronger pressure[13]. A vessel case had become part of a financial-policy campaign[13].
For the Fourth Division, meanwhile, control of access points could be valuable whether merchandise traveled within Syria or abroad[3]. The New Lines study’s picture of ports and checkpoints explains that structural advantage[3]. It does not make every cargo passing a controlled port a military shipment; it shows the leverage held by those who could allow commerce to proceed[3].
The price arrived next door
Lebanon’s farmers encountered the trade’s consequences through a different shipment[18]. In April 2021, Saudi authorities found 5.3 million Captagon pills in pomegranates imported from Lebanon[18]. An INSS study of Saudi-Lebanese relations connected the discovery with restrictions on Lebanese agricultural imports[18]. This was separate from the Malaysia case associated with Daqqou[25].
A drug seizure had become an obstacle to legitimate exports[18]. The distinction between illicit cargo and lawful livelihoods was easy to state and harder to preserve when governments imposed restrictions at the border[18]. The commercial damage traveled beyond the people accused of trafficking[18].
Jordan faced a sharper contradiction[9]. Rose and Jesse Marks wrote in 2022 that reopening and diplomatic contacts coexisted with trafficking-related insecurity[9]. Trade with Syria had reached only $94 million in 2020, about 15 percent of its prewar level[9]. The hoped-for economic recovery was modest; the security burden remained substantial[9].
Their assessment also described local rivalries and power struggles continuing after formal de-escalation in southern Syria[9]. An agreement between capitals did not dissolve the interests of armed actors near the frontier[9]. The reopening of a crossing and the restoration of secure commerce were different achievements[9].
By May 2023, air power had entered the story[30]. A joint OCCRP, BBC, Suwayda24 and Daraj investigation reported that an airstrike killed trafficker Marai al-Ramthan, his wife and six children[30]. Jordan had not publicly confirmed responsibility[30]. The same investigation recorded Syrian authorities’ denial that they participated in Captagon production or smuggling[30].
The industry’s costs also reached consumers, although seizures supplied far more visible numbers than treatment[24]. Brookings’ earlier regional drug-policy analysis described underprovided treatment and stigma that discouraged people from seeking help[24]. It is a different perspective from the border guard’s: reducing a flow of pills and reducing the demand for them are related but separate tasks[24].
Bargaining with the supplier
Policy attention arrived unevenly[15],[20]. MEI’s 2022 commentary argued that the drug industry was being overshadowed by better-known Syrian crises[15]. By June 2023, Washington had published a strategy combining investigative assistance, financial pressure, partner training and diplomatic messaging[20]. Captagon had acquired a dedicated place in US policy[20].
The EU’s April 2023 action listed 25 people and eight entities, a majority targeted over narcotics[27]. Its explanation described a regime-led business model enriching the inner circle[27]. Together with British and American measures, the action sought to make the network’s access to legitimate international business more costly[27].
Analysts disagreed about what such pressure could accomplish[8],[13],[16]. Ian Larson’s 2021 Atlantic Council commentary supported targeting traffickers while distinguishing those measures from broader sanctions’ humanitarian costs[16]. FDD urged more pressure in 2024[13]. Karam Shaar, writing in August 2023, argued that sanctions alone would have only marginal influence over entrenched operators[8].
Shaar’s larger objection concerned displacement[8]. With demand intact, suppressing supply in one area could encourage production elsewhere—the balloon effect[8]. His argument shifted the question from whether Assad could be pressured to whether removing one supplier would remove the market[8]. He advocated longer-term efforts addressing consumption through education, awareness and its social and economic drivers[8]. That approach offered fewer dramatic milestones than a shipment seizure or a sanctions announcement[8]. It also addressed a part of the business those measures left largely untouched: the people prepared to buy the next supply[8].
Cooperation posed its own problem[12]. Rose’s July 2022 New Lines assessment described Syrian representatives attending an INTERPOL-sponsored regional counternarcotics discussion[12]. The state accused of facilitating the trade also presented itself as a partner in stopping it[12]. Participation in a conference could open channels; it could not resolve the dispute over the participant’s conduct[12].
In July 2024, Valensi and Tal Avraham at INSS argued that normalization had allowed Assad to retain drug-related income while recovering Arab diplomatic relationships[4]. They described Jordan’s hope that re-engagement would secure cooperation and its subsequent turn toward force[4]. Their proposed response included Israeli intelligence, technological and diplomatic assistance to concerned regional states[4].
Later research complicated that picture[22]. New Lines’ briefing on 2024 found more shipment seizures but a lower total volume of seized pills[22]. It interpreted the pattern as possible tactical restriction of supply to improve the regime’s regional position[22]. Where INSS emphasized the absence of meaningful restraint, this later assessment saw signs of adjustment[4],[22]. The difference is consequential[22]. A government could announce a growing number of successful interdictions while each intercepted load became smaller[22]. That would produce a more active-looking enforcement record and a declining quantity of seized drugs at the same time[22]. Whether the cause was less production, a change in shipment patterns or a different enforcement effort required more than counting announcements[22].
Neither interpretation turns seizure data into a transcript of Assad’s decisions[7]. New Lines’ earlier 2015–2023 review had already shown how indicators diverged: pill seizures peaked in 2021, while arrests later increased[7]. It also identified small-scale production beyond Syria and warned that branding or composition alone could not reliably establish a consignment’s origin[7]. The industry was moving faster than any single measure could explain[7].
After the presidency
Assad’s fall in December 2024 changed the political structure around the trade[19]. In January 2025, FDD reported interim foreign minister Assad Hassan al-Shibani’s promise in Amman that Captagon smuggling would end[19]. The promise offered Jordan something years of dealings with the previous government had failed to deliver[19].
There were material changes[10]. Rose’s October 2025 CTC analysis described an initial drive against production infrastructure and reported a New Lines database count of seven laboratories dismantled, 23 warehouses raided and more than 200 million pills seized between December 2024 and September 2025[10]. Those were substantial recorded interventions, not proof that the remaining market had disappeared[10].
Kristian Alexander’s August 2025 Stimson commentary described a more fragmented industry, with smaller laboratories emerging after the collapse of centralized protection[21]. Rose likewise argued that local actors retained knowledge and relationships acquired during the regime years[10]. The destruction of a political center did not automatically erase the capabilities distributed around it[10],[21].
Daqqou’s legal story also continued[29],[30]. OCCRP and Daraj reported his release from Lebanese prison, citing judicial sources, after a seven-year sentence[29]. The earlier joint investigation had reported an important disagreement: the sentencing judge said the court found no evidence implicating Syrian officials, while reporters drew a different inference from the interrogation records[30]. The reported conviction and those wider allegations were not the same finding[29],[30].
The two permits described at his arrest belonged to a system in which permission itself had commercial value[2]. One had expired; the other had not[2]. Years later, the president was gone and laboratories were being dismantled[10]. Yet, as Rose’s account of the surviving networks explained, the knowledge acquired under that system remained with the people who had worked inside it[2],[10].
Sources
- Treasury Targets Hizballah Finance Network and Syrian Captagon Trafficking
- سيرة حسن دقو ومحضر اعترافاته: من طفلٍ يبيع الساعات إلى “ملك الكبتاغون” في لبنان
- Security Bureau
- INSS – No. 1879
- World Bank — Syria Economic Monitor: Conflict, Crises, and the Collapse of Household Welfare (2024)
- EMCDDA — Captagon: Understanding Today’s Illicit Market (2018)
- New Lines Institute – Captagon Briefing
- No Quick Fixes for the Middle East’s Captagon Crisis
- Jordan Is Far From Normalization With Syria
- CTC Sentinel – Article 4
- The Captagon Threat: A Profile of Illicit Trade, Consumption, and Regional Realities
- Fox in the Henhouse: INTERPOL’s Counternarcotics Engagement With Syria
- Washington Hits Syrian Narco-Trade With New Sanctions
- Is Captagon Going to Halt Arab Normalization?
- We Cannot Ignore Syria’s Emergence as a Narco-State
- Narcos: Syria Edition—and What the US Can Do About It
- Narcos, Syria-Lebanon Style
- INSS — The Crisis in Lebanese-Saudi Relations: Yet Another Blow to the Cedar State (2021)
- Syria’s New Authorities Vow to Shutter Captagon Trade
- Report to Congress: Strategy to Disrupt Narcotics Production and Trafficking Networks
- Assad’s Fall and Syria’s Fragmented Captagon Industry
- Captagon in 2024: Implications After the Fall of the Syrian Regime
- UNODC — World Drug Report 2022, Booklet 4
- Breaking Bad in the Middle East and North Africa: Drugs, Militants, and Human Rights
- Treasury: Syrian and Lebanese Captagon actors, 28 March 2023
- UK: Tackling the illicit drug trade fuelling Assad’s war machine, 28 March 2023
- Council of the EU: Syria sanctions, 24 April 2023
- OCCRP/IrpiMedia: Greek Captagon bust and Latakia network
- OCCRP/Daraj: Lebanon Releases Captagon King After Seven-Year Sentence
- OCCRP/BBC/Suwayda24/Daraj: A Drug War
