STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Next, we reveal another of the secrets of Syria's fallen president. We've heard of mass graves, basement prisons, steps in a room leading down to pools of something said to be acid. And now we visit a Captagon factory. Captagon is an addictive amphetamine banned in the United States, which President Bashar al-Assad's family manufactured and sold across the Middle East. Here's NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi.
HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, BYLINE: A sprawling luxury villa sits on top of a hill overlooking the Damascus countryside.
Walking up the driveway, there's a white streak of powder that just goes right to the entrance. The ground is very sticky. It smells a bit like tar.
A battered pickup truck with antiaircraft guns is parked just at the top of the driveway.
ABU BAKR AL-TARTOUSI: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: Twenty-nine-year-old Abu Bakr al-Tartousi leads the team of rebels guarding the house. After Assad fell and he and the other rebels took over this neighborhood, longtime residents came up to them.
AL-TARTOUSI: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "They always felt something was suspicious about this place," Tartousi says.
AL-TARTOUSI: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: Tartousi is dressed in fatigues, a backwards baseball cap, an assault rifle across his body. He's standing in the middle of the living room of the villa. There are marble floors and two massive low-hanging crystal chandeliers. It stinks of chemicals. Stacked against a wall are drums of liquid. The label says they're manufactured in India.
AL-TARTOUSI: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: White powder falls like flour from sacks also piled high. Tartousi points to the heavy-duty machinery in the room, all used, he says, to make this highly addictive drug called Captagon. Germans created it in the '60s, and it was supposed to treat attention deficit disorder and narcolepsy. It gives you a rush of energy. Tartousi walks into a dusty kitchen full of machinery and clutter. It looks like a kitchen found at the back of a restaurant - big metal sinks and a space fit for an industrial-sized stove.
AL-TARTOUSI: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "This was the lab," he says.
AL-TARTOUSI: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: Syria had always made and distributed Captagon to wealthy countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It was a party drug. Then, in 2011, the civil war broke out, and President Bashar al-Assad was desperate for money. So his family took over the production and trafficking of the drug. Captagon sales surpassed the sale of legal products in Syria. It made the Assad family $2.4 billion a year, according to analysts.
Walking down the hallway and the ground is just littered with these small pellets that the rebels told me hid the small pills, the Captagon pills.
AL-TARTOUSI: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "In this room is the last step of the process," says Tartousi.
AL-TARTOUSI: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "A machine pressurizes the powder and pushes out the pills," he says. Tartousi grabs a pile of these pellets in his hands and smashes one open.
(SOUNDBITE OF HAMMERING)
AL-SHALCHI: "Just open it like this, and the pills pop out," Tartousi says, presenting a small pinkish tablet in the palm of his hand.
AL-TARTOUSI: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "The regime created a corrupt nation," Tartousi says. But the rebels, including Abu Mohamed al-Suri, who mans the gate of the villa, want to change that.
ABU MOHAMED AL-SURI: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: He says they want to replace the illicit drug trade with companies, institutions, construction and merchants. To get there, the rebels are following instructions from the Ministry of Health to destroy the drugs. They set them on fire in the driveway, making the ground sticky.
AL-TARTOUSI: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "Our first wish came true, and that's the fall of Assad," says Tartousi. Now comes the challenge of eliminating remnants of one of Assad's most lucrative lifelines.
Hadeel Al-Shalchi, NPR News, Damascus. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
