Multiple billion dollar shipments of the drug known as Captagon have been seized in the last few years as the cheap amphetamine floods the Middle East. Alleged to have helped fund the Syrian Civil war, the tiny pills have been showing up in numerous massive shipments confiscated in Mediterranean port cities, often sent by shadowy, high level networks. The pi ... Show More
Today
Cuba’s New Synthetic Drug Wave
How Cuba is Slipping into Drug Chaos Since the beginning of the year, the US has placed Cuba under an oil embargo, crippling its public services and throwing a society that was already on its knees into chaos. Blackouts roll for days, trash piles high and locals are getting sick ... Show More
59m 52s
Oct 6
Cuba: From Lansky’s Casinos to Castro’s Guns
Sean got beaten up in Cuba! To celebrate this, we’ve thrown together a biopoly of crime in the tropics, beginning with the story of how American organized crime flocked to Havana in the 1920s as a Prohibition rum-runner’s paradise. After World War II, mobsters then executed a tak ... Show More
59m 13s
Sep 29
Stash House: Cartel Wars, Coke Boats, and Gangs Gone Global
Danny and Sean take another lap around the criminal world, where somehow everything is getting bigger, stranger, and more international. Sinaloa’s cartel war grinds on, Romanian crews allegedly drain millions from American food-benefit accounts, and South Africa confronts organiz ... Show More
1h 3m
Mar 2025
Captagon: Syria’s Hidden Drug Empire
Was al-Assad's Syria a narco-state? Captagon—a deadly, addictive amphetamine—has turned Syria into the heart of a $2 billion drug empire few know about, with the Assad regime at the center of it all. From secret labs to smuggling routes, we uncover how this shadowy network operat ... Show More
29m 45s
Jun 2023
Who's behind Syria's Captagon trade?
Captagon, a highly addictive amphetamine-like drug, is causing huge problems around the Middle East, as millions of pills are smuggled out of Syria. BBC News Arabic collaborated with the investigative journalism network OCCRP to find out who's behind the trade. Emir Nader tells u ... Show More
41m 32s
Sep 2023
«Stupéfiant Moyen-Orient», épisode 5. Drogues de synthèse
De la plaine de la Bekaa au Liban, à l’État profond en Turquie, la drogue ne cesse d’être présente au Moyen-Orient. Mais après le haschisch et l’héroïne, place aux amphétamines de synthèse dont un pays, la Syrie, s’est fait une spécialité. Le Captagon a envahi la région, où les p ... Show More
19m 30s
Feb 2025
Where will Captagon users get the drug after Assad’s fall?
<p>With Syria's new government cracking down on Captagon, where will production shift in the drug trade's supply chain? Under Bashar al-Assad’s rule, Syria became a hub of Captagon production. With demand continuing, where will the drug market turn to next?</p> <p><strong>I ... Show More
19m 56s
<p>New Lines Institute's <strong><a href="https://twitter.com/CarolineRose8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Caroline Rose</a></strong> explains how captagon, a drug you may have never heard of, is propping up genocidal regimes in the Middle East.</p>
<strong>What We Di ... Show More
