In the Syrian city of Duma, located in the northeastern suburbs of Damascus, a large drug laboratory was discovered, according to Reuters, whose reporters visited it together with representatives of the opposition that came to power in Syria.
The rebels said they found thousands of pills in the laboratory, many of which had a logo in the form of a double crescent or the word Lexus: these are signs denoting the drug captagon. It is also called "cocaine for the poor" or "drug of jihad."
The United States imposed sanctions against various individuals — Syrian and associated with the Lebanese Hezbollah, who were considered involved in the production of the captagon. Syria is considered a key state that was engaged in its synthesis.
The tablets were packaged in pieces of furniture, among fruits, decorative pebbles and other items, were stacked on pallets.
"They are ready for export," said one of the fighters accompanying the Reuters journalists.
He also showed one of the containers where the pills were placed.
The laboratory also found a press for tablets and containers with various chemicals — chloroform, potassium iodide, formaldehyde solution, ammonia solution, acetic and hydrochloric acids, etc. According to the labels, they were produced in countries such as the UK, China, India, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.
The rebels said that this drug laboratory is not the only one that was discovered after the fall of the regime of Bashar al—Assad. Reuters and Al Jazeera note, citing experts, that captagon trading could bring billions of dollars in income to him and his entourage. The New York Times conducted an investigation and found out that the Fourth Armored Division of the Syrian Army, an elite unit commanded by the president's younger brother Maher Assad, had control over production.
The active ingredient of captagon — phenethylline — was created in Germany as a milder alternative to amphetamine in the 1960s and was used for medicinal purposes, later it was banned for production as a psychotropic substance. The captagon spread in the Middle East — there were reports that it could be taken by militants — for example, those who participated in the terrorist attack in Israel on October 7 last year, RBC said.