UNODC and Naif Arab University for Security Sciences, The Evolution of the Synthetic Drug Market in the Arab Countries, post-December 2024, research brief, seven pages; with the UNODC press release, Vienna, 22 December 2025
Source ID
SRC-239
Citation
UNODC and Naif Arab University for Security Sciences, The Evolution of the Synthetic Drug Market in the Arab Countries, post-December 2024, research brief, seven pages; with the UNODC press release, Vienna, 22 December 2025
Retrieved 17 August 2026 from unodc.org, HTTP 200, 2,547,100 bytes, seven pages
Claims
CH6 the captagon enforcement record, its provenance, and whether the assessment has been published
Status
READ
Version history
The register keeps changing after the book is fixed in print. Each entry below was added to this row in the order shown.
READ IN FULL, ALL SEVEN PAGES INCLUDING THE REFERENCES, 17 AUGUST 2026. THIS IS THE BRIEF ITSELF AND IT SUPERSEDES OCCRP'S ACCOUNT OF IT AT SRC-234 AS THE CHAPTER'S SOURCE. It closes the untried route SRC-234 named, and it answers findings B4 and B5 of the v3 diff review. IT EXISTS AND IT IS PUBLISHED, dated Vienna 22 December 2025. THE CHAPTER MAY NOT SAY THE ASSESSMENT HAS NOT ARRIVED. WHAT IS OUTSTANDING IS THE WIDER REPORT, AND THE BRIEF DATES IT ITSELF: the research is still ongoing and is expected to be finalized in June 2026. AS AT 17 AUGUST 2026 the document served at the UNODC research-publications URL still carries that sentence unamended and no finalised version was located by search. That is a scoped, dated and executed absence and it may be printed as one. THE PROVENANCE SPLIT IS THE FINDING, AND THE CHAPTER CURRENTLY HAS IT WRONG. THE LABORATORY COUNTS ARE NOT UNODC'S OWN MEASUREMENT. Page 2 reads: According to Syrian authorities, 15 industrial level laboratories were dismantled in the country, as well as 13 smaller facilities for storage. Its reference 5 is: Communication between UNODC and Syrian Arab Republic authorities. BY CONTRAST THE 80 PER CENT IS UNODC'S OWN DATA: Between January 2019 and November 2025, 80 percent of captagon seizures reported across the region indicated the Syrian Arab Republic as the country of origin, reference 4, UNODC Individual Drug Seizures (IDS). AND THE SEIZURE TOTAL IS EXPRESSLY VERIFIED BY THE AGENCY: the press release says UNODC could verify data of a minimum of 177 million tablets, equivalent to 30 tons. SO THE STATE'S OWN FIGURES AND THE AGENCY'S VERIFIED FIGURES SIT IN THE SAME PARAGRAPH AND ARE DIFFERENT KINDS OF THING. That distinction is the chapter's argument rather than a footnote to it, because the whole section is about what a compliance officer can establish independently of the state's account. THE STOCKPILE CLAIM CARRIES A HEDGE IN THE BRIEF'S OWN WORDS AND THE CHAPTER MUST CARRY IT: It has been suggested, though this information remains unverified, that before December 2024 the daily production could have been millions of tablets and that stocks from previous production could possibly sustain supply for a couple of years if not intercepted. AND THE BRIEF STATES THE CHAPTER'S OWN POINT ABOUT ITSELF: trends in the Syrian Arab Republic are difficult to assess due to limited data. FINDINGS NOT CURRENTLY IN THE CHAPTER, available if wanted: traffickers use diversion and repackaging points through Western and Central Europe and North Africa, combine maritime and land routes, and use balloons and drones, in some areas relying on heavy weapons to secure crossings; the brief COULD NOT VERIFY the widely held assumption that production relocated to Africa; and its central forward-looking warning is that falling captagon supply may shift the market toward METHAMPHETAMINE, with 2024 and 2025 seizures increasingly showing the two trafficked together. Quoted in the press release: Bo Mathiasen, UNODC Director for Operations.