MP called for UK to sanction Assad family for captagon trade
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – A member of the British parliament called for the United Kingdom (UK) to sanction members of the family of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for captagon trade.
Alicia Kearns, chairwoman of Britain’s parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, said “the Assad family explicitly involved in this illicit family-trade, including one member of the family who regularly travels to the UK.”
This came in an exclusive statement Kearns made to MailOnline newspaper on August 18, where she expressed her concern “that captagon could travel through ‘significant trafficking networks’ to the UK unless stopped in its tracks.”
“The drug was being used as ‘a form of blackmail’ by Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s regime to ‘leverage and secure their interests’, with devastating consequences for local populations,” she told MailOnline.
The British MP called for the UK to sanction the members of the Assad family explicitly involved in this illicit family-trade, including one member of the family who regularly travels to the UK. “We need to ensure that our Border Force and other agencies are aware of captagon and working to prevent it reaching our shores.”
Selling for $3 to $25 per tablet, the pill is mainly produced and trafficked by groups tied to Bashar al-Assad and Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, the newspaper reported.
Kearns urged that more be done to counter the drug’s supply overseas, saying, “The US has recently launched the Global Coalition on Synthetic Drugs, which the UK has joined.” She added, “This is an important initiative, but we need to counter the drugs at source as well.”
In June, the US Department of State outlined its strategy to combat the captagon trade in Syria and the surrounding countries, that was revealed in the annual report to the Congress, “synchronizes U.S. interagency efforts to disrupt, degrade, and dismantle the illicit captagon networks linked to the Assad regime through four lines of effort,” including diplomatic and intelligence support for law enforcement, sanctions, counter-narcotics assistance and training to neighboring countries, and exerting pressure on Damascus through diplomatic means.