Headline : How the Assads used a civil war to turn Syria into a narco state

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A building where Captagon was being made before the Assad regime fell. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

DAMASCUS, Syria — A luxury villa dominates a hilltop overlooking the countryside just 15 miles outside the capital, Damascus. The driveway has a streak of white powder leading to the entrance. The ground is sticky, and the air is filled with a strong smell of tar.

A battered pickup truck with an anti-aircraft gun is parked at the top of the driveway. The large garden is unkempt and the swimming pool is dirty and abandoned. All this hints at a more sinister story inside; this was a factory for a highly addictive drug called Captagon.

For the past several years, the regime of Syria's ousted president, Bashar al-Assad, produced and trafficked in Captagon, sending it to countries throughout the region, where it was popular among young people. The Assad government earned billions of dollars in a desperate attempt to prop up an economy that collapsed during the country's long civil war.

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