For psychostimulant drug until a few years ago, captagon was known only to insiders in the police, secret services or international research institutes. The small pill with the strikingly embossed double letter "C" has since become synonymous with one of the most profitable businesses in the international drug trade: cheap to manufacture, expensive on the street. Because the basic ingredients, amphetamine and caffeine, cost only a few cents for one pill.
Kaptagon - a favorite among Arabs
That tablet is especially sought after in the Arabian region. On the streets of Riyadh, Jeddah or Dubai today it costs between 15 and 20 dollars per piece. Tons of these pills are shipped to that region, and the profits from them are huge. The production of one hundred kilograms of captagon costs about 50.000 euros, and their sale on the street brings in more than eight million euros. writes DW.
Meanwhile, the drug trade also takes place through Germany, which is why it appears as a topic in more and more police stations. A research team of journalists from several German newsrooms spent two years researching the topic of captagon and the role of dealers in Germany. In their research, they came to the conclusion that captagon trade and its production will become a serious problem for Germany and Europe in the coming years.
Much is unknown
Luc Preissler is one of those who in Germany's Federal Criminal Office (BKA) investigates the smuggling of this drug. At the same time, only "ten percent of what we know is the 'bright field', the rest is the 'dark field'," the policeman says vividly. In other words, the police fail to detect 90 percent of the drug trade. That could be a huge amount, given that customs officials and police have seized about 1,2 tons of captagon in Germany in the past two years. And that is the ten percent that Preissler is talking about.
At the same time, Germany is no longer just a transit country for that drug, but it is also produced in Germany. Last summer, BKA discovered a production of captagon in Regensburg. The ingredients were from the Netherlands, as was the pill making machine.
The business with that drug takes place on an international level and, as journalistic research has shown, is complexly networked. At the same time, Syrian dealers, who know each other, are "in charge" of this in Germany, according to the research team.
Journalists noticed that, although huge amounts of captagon are being seized across Germany, police investigations and court processes are focused on regional levels, so there are almost no investigations into the network or the networks behind it.
Consumption in Germany is a big unknown
Antonio Hubbard is a former agent of the US Drug Enforcement Agency, DEA, and has worked in the field for 25 years, including in Colombia, Afghanistan and African countries. He says of Germany: "No transit country will remain only transit."
Hubbard is convinced that criminals keep some of the drugs that pass through Germany in that country and sell them on the market. This has not been confirmed by the German Crime Bureau. So far, no such market has been observed in Germany, according to BKS Preissler. Hubbard, however, is pessimistic: "All countries should be concerned about the rise of captagons."
A journalistic research team managed to talk to a captagon smuggler in Germany. He claims that his men from the Syrian and Lebanese Captagon cartels told him that only powder should be transported from that area to Europe in the future, and that the tablets should then be produced and sold in Europe.
In the meantime, experts estimate that the powder for the production of captagon no longer comes only from Syria and Lebanon, but also from laboratories in the Netherlands and Germany. Their estimates are that the cartels thus strive to become independent from the ruling systems in those countries, for example from the clan of Syrian President Assad.
Billions worth of profits for Assad and Hezbollah
The Assad regime, according to those estimates, earns up to 50 billion dollars annually from the captagon trade. The Lebanese Hezbollah is also involved in the drug business. This is money that the cartels would not have to pay if they moved production to countries like Germany.
In the meantime, the German security authorities realized that they had to network their investigations at the level of the entire country. BKA confirmed that several months ago a working meeting of BKA investigators, provincial police administrations and prosecutors' offices was held to discuss the problem of captagon. BKA official Preissler points out that the authorities would have to act: "I think the subject of the captagon will occupy us for a long time."
