While the industrial-scale drug trade of the Bashar al-Assad era is over, cross-border smuggling from Syria has not stopped altogether. Without patronage, facilitation and security cover from the former regime and its security apparatus, smuggling will be far less sophisticated than during the Assad years. For the time being, ETANA Syria assesses that smuggling networks will capitalize on lax border controls, prevailing demand and narcotics supplies leftover from before the regime’s collapse. Indeed, south Syria has already begun to witness a minor uptick in cross-border smuggling operations into Jordan since the beginning of the year—albeit a fraction of the total number of smuggling operations witnessed during the 2023-2024 season. So far, 25 attempts were monitored between 8th December and mid-January, compared with 65 attempts during the same period in 2023-2024.
In the short to medium term, we can expect to see an overall reduction in the number of cross-border smuggling attempts. At the same time, Syria’s post-Assad economy will take a long time to recover, and in this interim period transporting or carrying trafficked goods will pose an attractive source of income for young men. With Syria’s new interim authorities raiding former Captagon manufacturing facilities, supply for the market is quickly dwindling—but demand is not. Smuggling networks will likely sell narcotics nearing their expiration date locally and try to move whatever else they can across the border, not least because product sold outside of Syria yields significantly higher profits. With domestic Captagon production all but stopped, arms and other types of drugs—namely hashish and crystal meth—are likely to become more popular for smuggling networks along the border in the coming months.
Post-Assad Smuggling Networks
Syria’s smuggling networks may have lost their primary patron and protection, but they are not without resources. As regime military and intelligence units rapidly withdrew towards Damascus before Bashar al-Assad’s departure, smugglers entered abandoned bases and weapons warehouses to seize arms and military-grade equipment. Meanwhile, prominent smugglers fled south Syria, either heading towards areas inside Syria then deemed safer (like Damascus) or leaving the country altogether. In one instance, dozens of individuals linked to known trafficking families fled to Iraq after several smuggling headquarters in Rural Damascus’ Al-Dumayr were attacked by former opposition groups on 9th December. Clashes erupted during the assault, resulting in the deaths of two prominent smugglers.
Although many of the south’s prominent smuggling bosses have fled the region or gone into hiding, others have managed to stay in place and resume work. One example is Ghassan Abu Zureiq, known for years as a smuggling lynchpin overseeing clandestine narcotics transportation into Jordan via the Nassib crossing with the help of his brother, Imad Abu Zureiq, who leads an armed group previously affiliated with regime Military Intelligence. Just after the regime collapsed, Ghassan Abu Zureiq leveraged insider knowledge of the drugs network to commandeer 10 tons of narcotics, as well as Captagon production equipment, from the home of former 4th Division Security Bureau leader Ghassan Bilal. The Abu Zureiq brothers have built a strong political and security constituency in and around Nassib, meaning their continued presence (and illicit activities) near the border could present a challenge for HTS-led authorities keen to present a clean break from the days of the former regime.
Border crossing attempts
There have been 25 crossing attempts along the Syrian-Jordanian border since the fall of the regime, 14 of which took place since the beginning of 2025. This is a significant reduction compared with last year, when there were 65 crossing attempts during the same period. Eight of the total attempts so far proved successful, a success rate of 32%.
Smugglers made three attempts between 7th and 8th January alone. A group attempted to move 100 kilos of narcotics on foot, and during the attempt communication was lost with two carriers who are now believed to have been arrested by Jordanian authorities. Another attempt saw one kilo of crystal meth loaded onto a drone that was subsequently shot down by Jordanian forces, and a third attempt saw carriers try to move 100 kilos of narcotics by foot from south-east Suwayda. Syria’s southern smuggling networks are increasingly using drones to transport goods. Drones are readily available in south Syria and are even sold in mobile phone shops at prices ranging between $4-8,000.
Leftover supplies
The scale of current supply shipments is nothing like the highly organized, top-down supply-chains facilitated by Hezbollah and the former regime that also constructed an extensive domestic production network—a network that has now all but disappeared. Smuggling networks are therefore largely handling drugs supplies leftover from before the regime’s collapse, supplies that they will either sell on locally or try to move across the border depending on the age and quality of the drugs in question. Additionally, without Captagon produced inside Syria, smugglers may turn to arms or other narcotics—such as hashish and crystal meth coming from Lebanon and Iraq—to make up for shortfalls.
Ongoing Counter-Smuggling Efforts
Speaking after entering Damascus victoriously on 8th December, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Abu Muhammad al-Jolani described Assad’s Syria as the “biggest producer of Captagon on earth” and vowed that the country would be “purified by the grace of God,” underlining the importance of Captagon in Syrians’ perceptions of the former regime. Operation Deterring Aggression factions subsequently uncovered industrial-grade narcotics production and packaging warehouses in Adra, Douma, Al-Dumayr and other areas of Damascus. To date, however, there has been no systematic counter-smuggling effort by HTS-led authorities in Damascus—even though HTS is expected to actively combat the drug trade in Syria once the political and security situation becomes more settled, given the group’s stated religious, political and internal approach to Captagon and narcotics in general.
In recent years, regime-facilitated smuggling networks relied on uninhabited areas of desert in south-east Suwayda and south-east Rural Damascus to transport arms and narcotics across the Syrian-Jordanian border. While the volumes of narcotics are different, this geographical trend remains unchanged: other than four documented attempts so far in Daraa, the rest have so far taken place in Suwayda or Rural Damascus. In the absence of a unified post-Assad armed force under a reformed Ministry of Defense, former regime posts along the Syrian-Jordanian border are still being manned by local factions—including Druze factions and Ahmad al-Awdeh’s groups—which have limited capacity to effectively and systematically monitor the entire border strip under a unified central command, thereby potentially giving more operational space to smuggling networks in remote desert areas.
Jordan, too, continues to clash with smugglers attempting to cross its borders. One smuggling leader, Muhammad Salem al-Saoub, and eight other carriers were killed by Jordanian border forces during a failed cross-border smuggling attempt near Matitah in south-east Rural Damascus province that led to early morning clashes between the two sides on 1st January. On 12th January, Jordanian authorities reported clashes with smugglers along the border that left a border guard injured and one Syrian smuggler dead, with narcotics and a pistol seized in the aftermath. Alleged Jordanian airstrikes also reportedly targeted two houses in south-east Suwayda’s Al-Sha’ab, a historic smuggling hub not far from the Syrian-Jordanian border. One of the targeted sites is believed to be the home of prominent smuggler Jihad al-Saeed.