Two people have been arrested in Raqqa, Syria by The Internal Security Forces of North and East Syria (Asayish) for promoting captagon pills. The press release stated the traffickers were found with 6,194 pills on them. Captagon is a popular stimulant pill in the Middle East, but prior to this there had been little evidence of usage in Rojava, the Kurdish held region of Syria.
The pills may be linked to the new captagon smuggling route from Syria to Iraq. The new route appeared after the Syria-Lebanon-Gulf route collapse when Saudi Arabia banned Lebanese imports. There has been a continuing rise in seizures in Iraq which reflect its prominence as a transit and consumer state. However, the relatively small size of the bust suggest the pills may not be destined for Iraq. Drug consumer markets often appear along smuggling routes, as seen in Jordan (another transit and consumer country for captagon). This may signal a growing consumer market in North-East Syria.
