Syria: Inside Captagon drug factory which funded Assad’s brutal regime – Channel 4 News
13m
12 Dec 2024

Syria: Inside Captagon drug factory which funded Assad’s brutal regime

International Editor

It’s been called the poor man’s cocaine.

Captagon: the drug that funded Bashar al-Assad’s brutal rule in Syria.

It’s an amphetamine which – in high doses – induces feelings of euphoria and invulnerability.

Popular with soldiers, they say it offers ‘chemical courage’ and reportedly suppresses pain.

And it’s made the Assad family billions – more than 10 billion dollars a year, by recent estimates. Money it used to shore up a crumbling dynasty.

Filmed and edited by Soren Munk; and produced by Rob Hodge.

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