864: Caroline Rose | Captagon and the New Age of Narco-Diplomacy

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26:03All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are at jordanharbinger.com slash deals, or ask the AI chatbot on the website at jordanharbinger.com slash AI. Thank you so much for supporting those who support the show. Now, back to Carolyn Rose. what's the cocaine trade by way of comparison do you know yes yes yeah 110 130 billion i would say yeah yeah so this is like roughly let's say 10 of the cocaine trade which we which has armies and submarines and aircraft and huge cartels operating internationally so it might sound small compared to cocaine but we're also talking about a much smaller area with a much smaller market that's saying something that's essentially the chief export, but that begs the question, okay, if this is something that I just assumed was cooked up in small facilities, you're not cooking up$10 billion worth of a cheap drug in a small facility.

26:59The production of this, especially if it's one of Syria's chief exports, has to be literally, no exaggeration, a massive industrial scale operation. I mean, there have to be factories that were making, I don't know, headache medicine that are now just making Captagon, right? That's what we identified in the report. I mean, certainly you have kind of a spectrum of production facilities and capabilities throughout the region. But what we started to pick up in 2020 and 2021 was just exactly that. In the 1970s and 80s, Syria had its heyday of being one of the largest pharmaceutical hubs in the region.

27:36If you look at recent UN data, it shows that Syria right before the war was one of the largest importers of a drug called pseudoephedrine, which is used for cough and cold medicine. So if you think of Mucinex or Robitussin. Pseudafed. Yeah, exactly. That could be used, we suspect, in Captagon production processes and manufacturing processes. And the scale of some of these Captagon production sites through the reports that we were able to glean in the report do show that this is pretty large scale. And not only large scale in terms of production. But can you imagine transporting millions of Captagon pills on, for example, a commercial, you know, a vessel or, you know, trying to dispatch that through overland routes?

28:24It requires a lot of logistical planning and some pretty advanced and impressive shrouding techniques and smuggling techniques. I mean, it's huge. Yeah, I definitely want to talk about that because I'm looking at some of these seizures And there's one in a single day, July 1st, 2020, 84 million pills were found confiscated in the port of Salerno, Italy. The street value of that was a billion euros. My first question is, isn't that like enough Cap to gone for every man, woman and child in the entire country or multiple countries in the area? These are not big places. You could get everybody high for a day in the whole region practically at that.

29:05Well, yes, but also we're curious as well. And this was a question that I haven't really been able to answer yet, but especially, you know, that was to Italy and it was suspected that it would be rerouted back into the Gulf, potentially, because the consumption markets don't quite exist there in Southern Europe so far. So there is the potential that, you know, once these are getting to these destination countries in the Gulf, perhaps they could be also dispatched to a next destination. That's definitely possible. Consumption definitely has been proven in a lot of these destination markets. But I have that exact question sometimes where it's like, wait a second, we're sending more than is needed in some cases in terms of, you know, unless every single individual in some of these countries are consuming Captagon.

29:54And it's very difficult to store it for a very long time because it loses its potency. So there is that question of, wait a second, what are we missing here? Unless people are taking, you know, three or four Captagon pills a day, which would be terrible and is not likely, where is all of this going? Are you just storing it in warehouses? And, you know, that's one of the lingering questions that I have when I look at this trade, especially as we see shipments just get larger and larger and larger. I don't imagine that drug traffickers like storing billions of dollars in product somewhere where it could get seized and then they just keep buying more.

30:30That doesn't make sense to me. You know, when you smuggle cocaine in some place, and I'm no expert here, but if you're bringing cocaine into the United States, the last thing you want to do is go, all right, That's brick number 75, throw it in the garage with the rest of them. I mean, you want to move that stuff as fast as possible. One, so you can get your money. And two, so you can keep the heat off of you and not have this in your possession. So somebody has to be taking it or reselling it or moving it somewhere else. And they just haven't caught where it's going. I mean, could it be moved from the Gulf to Africa?

31:00Is it being taken by people who are fighting civil wars somewhere else that we're just not paying attention to? I don't know. How likely is that? Oh, I think extremely likely. And I think, you know, when we get into the context of some of these other conflict zones that exist, you know, near the Horn or, you know, in the Sahel or northern Africa, it's even harder to track. So, you know, that's been something that I think deserves a lot more research and a lot more attention because we have had some limited evidence of Captagon winding up and being stored in Libya. We've had some evidence of Captagon being seized in Nigeria.

31:36And, you know, again, to your point and what we talked about previously about empowering other illicit networks, that same seizure, the Port of Salerno seizure that you're talking about that was conducted in July 2020. Guess who was supposed to receive that? And guess who was supposed to facilitate that? A mafia group called the Comora. Oh, wow. So like, you know, there's an Italian mafia group that is working and engaging with directly with regime Syrian regime aligned actors to receive a drug shipment. So, you know, it just goes to show that as they're looking to expand this market, especially if they have more pills and they know what to do with, that is going to undermine and empower a lot of these other, quote, bad guys and malign actors out there in the international community.

32:23Why ship it to Europe just to ship it back into the Gulf? Is that because if it's coming from Syria, it's probably drugs at this point? I mean, statistically speaking, it's more likely drugs than not drugs. So you ship it to Italy and then it comes back and it looks like, I don't know, Ikea furniture or something like that. Is that the plan? That's actually a great way to phrase it. Yeah, I mean, essentially, it all comes down to suspicion. There's only so many times that you can send a Captagon shipment out of the port of Beirut or the port of Latakia without things starting to become a little fishy, especially with, you know, GCC states that are now starting to wake up in terms of the challenge of Captagon.

33:00So yeah, as soon as you get that EU stamp, it's the same reason why we've seen Captagon wind up, for example, at the port of Klang in Malaysia. You want to get that stamp that shrouds suspicion and makes these shipments look a lot less suspicious. Okay, so if we're shipping it to the Balkans and we're shipping it to Italy and the mafia which are no joke in the Balkans, I know the Italian mafia is not what it used to be or, you know, whatever the good old days were the 60s, 70s, 80s, I guess, but or maybe even earlier over there. If they're touching the stuff, are we worried at all that they're going to then go, hey, you know, shipping it is profitable, but you know, it's really profitable selling it at retail prices in the area where we live.

33:43Are you worried that they're going to develop a market there because Europeans have a lot of money and they certainly have more money than, let's say, at developing a market in Africa for this. So it would be pretty profitable if they just kept a bunch of it instead of shipping it onward and sold it at retail prices instead of, I don't know, wholesaling it to the next destination. It's possible. I mean, I haven't necessarily seen evidence of that happening just yet, although I will say, and I wrote something recently on this, that when I was looking at my data from 2022, I did see an uptick in Captagon shipments over land, not through commercial vessels or anything like that, but over land through Turkey.

34:23And a lot of the law enforcement systems and law enforcement officials in Turkey that would seize Captagon, they said, hey, this is destined for European countries. They never said which one, which was not helpful. And you never know, maybe it was actually destined for the Gulf or somewhere else. And maybe they were just saying that to say that. But, you know, that was a very notable trend that we saw in 2022. So I think it's entirely possible that Europe could be targeted as a market for this drug. But, you know, there's just no way to know about how successful its appeal will have. I mean, look, you don't have to stretch to make me right if I'm not right.

34:59But it does seem like the kind of thing a country would say, like, oh, our people aren't taking this. This was going to Germany. We don't take Captagon over here. We have God-fearing people over here in Turkey. I mean, maybe they're right. Maybe they're not. Who knows? It's just, it's hard to say. But again, you know, you don't have to stretch just because I made a guess that happens to be wrong. So how do they ship this stuff? I assume you don't just crack open a container and a bunch of pills spill out. What's the smuggling method they're using? Well, actually, you know, we have seen a few shipments where it is, you just do a quick little poke through the packaging material.

35:34That sounds lazy. I know. Well, that was back in 2020. So since then, they've gotten like absolutely wild with the seizure materials that they've used. Porcelaino was cardboard cylinders, like industrial size. They were massive. But yeah, you go through and then it was just all packed throughout there. But now it feels like everything under the sun. I've seen Captagon shrouded inside of fruit, inside of pomegranate skins, which can you imagine like the technique of someone, you know, putting it inside of pomegranates? I've seen it shrouded inside and disguised as like chickpeas, like two or three pills together.

36:12And then they put this like mesh overlay over to make it look like they were chickpeas. Oh my God. We've seen it inside of lemons. We've seen it inside of oranges, inside of fake oranges. Like they got plastic oranges and put it inside that. But who orders like 10 million fake oranges? They're like, oh, your fake oranges have arrived, sir. Thank God. I know. We've been sitting on these fruit bowls with plastic bananas and plastic apples for months now. Thank God these have arrived. I know. And part of me thinks that some of these guys are just doing this to, I don't know, have fun with it. Yeah, exactly.

36:46Because at this point, it's like whatever. And always, especially with these very flashy ones, they're shipped in these huge sizes, which is pretty risky if you think about it. So I feel like sometimes there's like this at the board meeting of Captagon smugglers. they probably are like, all right, guys, let's do oranges this year. Let's do sheep guts. Like they packaged it in the carcasses of livestock. Yeah. Oh, gosh. I know. But then what's gross is then don't people, do people then eat the carcass of the livestock? Is it for consumption? I don't think so. I don't know, actually. I don't know.

37:22There have been two instances of it like being inside of dead sheep. But what do you use dead sheep for if not, I don't know. Maybe I'm out of the loop on that one. Yeah, maybe it is for consumption. But yeah, it's pretty wild. We saw something inside of like olive oil containers, inside of like car parts. Anyways, the list can go on. That's shocking. The pomegranate and fruit stuff is amazing because the amount of manual labor, like you said, can you imagine somebody putting Captagon tab pills into a pomegranate? The amount of manual labor involved in that is enormous. I mean, you would need thousands of people sitting in a row shoving Captagon tablets into tens of thousands or whatever, hundreds of thousands of pomegranates because they rot, right?

38:09So you can't just do them slowly over time and then ship a rotten, shriveled pomegranate. You got to do it in a couple of days. So you take out all those seeds, which anybody who's ever eaten a pomegranate already realizes this is a huge pain in the ass. You do something with the seeds. Hopefully they get consumed and not just wasted, but whatever. and then you shove tablets into that space in the pomegranate? Or is the whole thing hollowed out and just full of pills? For what I saw in the pictures, the whole thing was hollowed out and then filled with pills. However, on that same kind of wavelength, there was a seizure that was conducted inside of Syria where they had them inside of olive pits.

38:45So still trying to keep the olives intact. And can you imagine just putting one to two pills in that space? still like a lot of, a lot of work. Um, and yeah, so it's pretty incredible. I'm going to throw something out there and I don't want to give anybody ideas, but I'm sure they're better at this than me, given the fact that they've made$10 billion a year off this stuff. They're probably got to be using machines, right? You throw the olives into a machine. It's supposed to put the pimento in there or whatever, the little red thing. Maybe it just takes the pit out instead of pimentos, they've rigged it.

39:16So it puts captagon pills in there. Cause I can't imagine the manual labor involved in that. otherwise. It's just ridiculous. Yeah, I know. I'm starting to think about like everything on our seizure database. Like they put stuff like inside of like canned lids. Canned lids? Yeah, like tomato paste lids. So like they would put it under like inside and then they would put like another layer or like a seal over it and they would have it inside of the lids. Oh, wow. They're really, really, really advanced and always very entrepreneurial in terms of what is being found with Captagon inside. It's never usually just a bag.

39:52Although sometimes you see that with smuggling, like Overland smuggling. It's gotta be really hard to find stuff like this. I know some of the seizures that I looked at, they were stuffed into washing machines. So you're not gonna take apart a washing machine. I guess if you have a drug sniffing dog and it realizes something is amiss, you take it apart. But if you're just a human looking at it, there's no freaking way you're finding it in a refrigerator or an air conditioning unit. You're just not gonna look inside. Yeah, unless you have x-ray, unless you're putting everything through there. I mean, it's pretty amazing that, you know, so much has been detected, but I think it just goes to show how it is very difficult for law enforcement systems to, you know, be on top of this.

40:29And then on top of that, you know, you do tip offs and sometimes you do have intelligence passed on, but there's a lot of distrust amongst neighbors in the Middle East. So you don't really have that level of coordination that you would want, you know, that phone call that says, Hey, this is coming from the port of Beirut, we suspect that this could have X amount of Captagon pills inside. Definitely check it when it arrives at the port of Haditha or the port of Jeddah or something. That, I think, is lacking in the region. I looked up Syria's legal exports, and this is a couple years old, but it was 860 million.

41:02So if you're talking about 860 million, so not even a billion, let's say it's a billion now, and you're talking about almost 10 billion for the Captagon trade, this is 10 times their legal exports. So this is this has to be the top revenue generator for the entire country at this point. Is that correct? Or am I overstating that? It's hard to ascertain. I would say absolutely. But in terms of the level of state involvement that is implicated in Captagon production and trafficking, it's a major, major, major revenue source without the receipts of, you know, what's being rerouted back into the pockets of these producers and traffickers, how much is being paid to these traffickers as well, how much it takes for production to take place.

41:48It's really difficult to just know exactly how much, but it definitely, as you mentioned, it's larger than their illicit exports, which just is pretty incredible. So is this a mafia in Syria doing this, or are we talking about the regime itself has its own government officials doing this? Like when we talk about North Korea, you see North Korean diplomats doing stuff like smuggling heroin. Are we seeing that with Syria? Or are we seeing mafia groups that may or may not be kind of tangentially attached to Assad's cousins, friends from college or whatever? I mean, how close are we talking? Well, I would say it's definitely like this very complex landscape that exists in terms of captive gun production.

42:26You have a group, for example, some of the traffickers we see along the Syrian Jordanian border, they'd been doing, you know, A lot of these are, you know, these tribal entities and families that, you know, traded cigarettes over the border or arms. And, you know, today it's Captagon because that is in high demand. However, you also have some of these groups of narco entrepreneurs, I would call them individuals that are, you know, deeply embedded in Syria's business and agricultural sector that have, you know, these connections. They have these shell companies that exist abroad that the regime or, you know, these major Captagon producers can tap into to transport Captagon out of the country.

43:11But then you have the, I would say, top tier level where, you know, it isn't necessarily a directive that the Syrian government or Bashar al-Assad himself has created. But you are pretty close because you have, for example, one of his direct cousins, Wasim Badia Al-Assad, who has been a noted Captagon producer and trafficker. And then most notably, his brother, Mahar al-Assad, is heavily implicated in Captagon production and trafficking. And he also just so happens to head the regime's most, I would say, prestigious and formidable security apparatus and security arm, which is called the Fourth Division.

43:53And the Fourth Division is extremely well equipped and has been very heavily associated with Captagon production and trafficking.

44:04You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Carolyn Rose. We'll be right back. If you're wondering how I managed to book all these folks for the show, it is because of my network. And I know networking sounds gross, sounds dirty, sounds schmoozy. The course is at jordanharbinger.com slash course. And the course is not gross. It's not cringy. It's not awkward. It's not cheesy. It's just practical exercises that will make you a better connector, a better colleague, a better friend, a better peer. Takes a few minutes a day. And many of the guests on the show, subscribe and contribute to the course.

44:34So come join us. You'll be in smart company. Again, the course is free. Jordan harbinger.com slash course. Now for the rest of my conversation with Carolyn Rose. So it sounds like the state is really not just complicit, but it is intertwined with this completely. When you have the military's elite units providing security and helping smuggle, and you have the president's brother doing this and the president, especially when it's a dictatorship, that's not like, oh, the guy was in this other business beforehand. I mean, Assad's been in charge of the country for, well, they've been in charge for generations at this point.

45:06So this is not a something he just cooked up, no pun intended, in the last couple of years. This is something that's always been there. Okay. And I would imagine there's also an element of Assad keeping the smugglers and the mafia groups as allies if they control certain areas of the country. I know we did an episode about the dictator's handbook with Alastair Smith, episode 794 and 795. And one of the things he brought up was dictators often have organized crime figures around them because those people have real power in the country and dictators have this, they have their cronies around them and they have to keep those people happy.

45:41They don't have to keep the population happy. Those aren't really the stakeholders. They have to take the people with real power. So organized crime groups, kleptocrats and rich people, essentially, elites happy. So I would imagine if there's that much money in this, everybody who's got any power at all is probably getting their hands into Capcom in Syria. Exactly, exactly. I mean, you look at some of the biggest magnets of Syria's telecommunications sector, their agricultural sector, other industrial production sectors, you know, for example, the cardboard cylinders that were used at the Port of Salerno, that happened to be from a very close regime and Assad family ally who provided the cardboard cylinders for that.

46:22Everyone is playing a part, whether that is providing a truck or providing shrouding materials or providing a facility to make Captagon or even directly overseeing the production process. And I would say that you're absolutely right in the sense that, you know, the Assad regime, this is multi-generational. And a lot of these same big figures have been around for a long time, or, you know, perhaps their families have been very prominent in this particular business sector. And, you know, already the Syrian business landscape and their political landscape was already corrupt to begin with. But now this adds, like, I would say a huge layer of complicity and corruption and coordination.

47:02I would say it is notable, though, to keep that narrative of plausible deniability. So you have the fourth division, you've got Assad's very own brother running a lot of these operations. But then you also have a very active ministry of interior that is conducting seizures wherever they can. And these seizures are much, much smaller. You know, sometimes you'll see some of these seizure reports and they're like sometimes three to five pills. Three to five pills? Yes. Yes. And they're putting that up there, right? Compared to like the millions that we're seeing seized in the Gulf. It's interesting.

47:36Also very interesting when compared to the fact that Syria is the largest hub of production. So when you're only getting five pills, There's a lot underneath the surface there that they know is being produced, but they're not going after it. And then on top of that, you know, some of these seizures that we've seen, they're a bit wonky as well. For example, Syria announced that they found Copticon powder in the form of hummus bowls, like pottery bowls that they found, which is very difficult to assess if that's possible. So you have this kind of balancing act that you can see that the regime is trying to wage to offload that blame, to say, look, we're doing all that we can, and also to kind of create that space between what the government ministry is doing, but then also, of course, some of these other security actors and business actors that are closely aligned, but they're operating independently.

48:27Ah, man. Yeah, I'm looking at some of these stats. In 2020, the United Nations registered that Syria had imported 50 tons of an important basic ingredient for the production of Capricorn. That's a lot, right? The chemicals, pseudoephedrine, which you mentioned before, that they use in cold medicines and crystal meth, 50 tons. And I looked up like, okay, well, is that a lot? Because I know other places that make pharmaceuticals, they've got to be importing it. Are they importing 5 ,000 tons? I don't know. No, it's a little more than half of the amount imported by Switzerland, which has a massive pharmaceuticals industry that's legitimate.

49:02So if you're importing, let's say, 50 % of what Switzerland is importing, but you're exporting no legitimate or very little, very little legitimate pharmaceuticals and Switzerland is putting stuff all over the world, you're importing a shitload of pseudoephedrine, for lack of a better term. It's just a huge amount in scale. Yeah, it's extremely. And they haven't changed those, you know, the levels of what has been requested since the advent of the Civil War. So it's very difficult to gauge just how much is coming in. And likely also, they likely have a lot of stockpiled precursor materials from before the war began as well.

49:39So and they have these facilities, especially in areas that were not as affected by the violence of the Civil War. You know, a lot of those hubs still exist. So yeah, they have a huge production capacity that is notable. And I would say a lot of governments are starting to wake up too. How much does Captagon cost if you try to buy it in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, because you got a party to go to or whatever, you've got exams? How much are we talking about? You know, it depends on where you're buying it, how close you are to production. Well, yeah, you need a good hookup. Exactly. And it also depends on like what sort of pill you're buying.

50:14What's most common in the Gulf, at least over the last two years, has been the Lexus variant, which is a white variant of Captagon. I say Lexus because they have it in a Lexus logo on the plastic bags. Usually it's like this metallic silver or gold Lexus logo. As a researcher on Captagon, I now cannot drive on the road without seeing a Lexus car and being like, oh, that's a Captagon car. But Lexus is the most popular in Saudi Arabia. Typically, pills cost anywhere between like$10 or sometimes up to$25 per pill that's been recorded on the market, which is pretty crazy. But of course, there are cheaper variants that exist.

50:55There's a yellow, like a mealy yellow pill that has a smaller concentration of amphetamine. And then also we recorded like a pink strawberry tinted Captagon pill. We're starting to see a pill that's a bit more brown and like rusty looking, which is doesn't bode well for public health. That sounds gross. Yeah. Yeah, it sounds really gross. And it's very difficult to kind of ascertain how much those pills are going for. And we've also seen that those pills are a bit more popular closer to production sites. So in Syria and Lebanon and Jordan. I know that it's impossible to get sort of international cooperation, real international cooperation with a place like Syria because it's a dictatorship.

51:35The ruling family controls the drug trade and the judiciary and the law enforcement system, right? So you're not going to get Interpol going in there to supervise operations. It's just not going to happen. Well, no. And then I would also mention Interpol accepted Syria into their red notice alert system in the last year. Tell us what that is. Interpol's red alert system essentially is that if you're part of this notification system, you're allowed to request Interpol. You know, if there's a warrant for arrest, if there's someone that your government wants to arrest that essentially facilitates countries and wherever that individual might be, they will cooperate to arrest them.

52:20We haven't seen that red notice system heavily used by Syrian authorities against opposition forces, luckily. But we are starting to see Interpol normalize and open a door back to Syrian authorities after all this time. They say that this was a decision that was not politically motivated. And they said that the Syrian regime has proven itself to be, you know, a suitable readmission back to the red notice system. However, we've also seen Interpol begin to include the Syrian regime in dialogues on counter narcotics policy. So, for example, Operation Lionfish, which focuses on, Captagon is a part of that operation.

53:01They've invited the Syrian regime to sit down at the table and have a chat about what the regime can do to counter illicit narcotics like Captagon. That's ridiculous. Like, well, look, I understand if we include a place that has a drug or narco trafficking problem. Like, we want to involve Mexico in dialogue with the United States because we both have narco trafficking problems and drug problems. But when it's the state actually doing it and it's the dictator actually doing it and the law enforcement agencies and military actually doing the trafficking, that seems a little bit like a bridge too far.

53:35At what point do you just realize that they're completely full of it, lying to you, everything's performative and they're going to try and derail your efforts. And they've got an inside man on every meeting where you're making plans on how to derail their operations. It makes that to me just seems dangerously naive to the point of stupidity. The same kind of line of thinking has started to really affect a lot of other geopolitical developments as well. For example, a lot of countries in the region, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, even Jordan to an extent, Egypt, they're starting to toy with the idea of real normalization with Syria.

54:11And that means your embassy is reopened back in the capital city, send an ambassador, you've got full-blown, like revived relations. You know, you try and revive commercial relations, political relations, everything. And what is at the top of the agenda on things that they could potentially cooperate with the regime on? Captagon. There have been a number of experts and also, of course, the data shows that, well, if the regime is in a large part an agent in the Capitagon trade, they have agency to stop it. But they also have, I would say, probably more of an incentive to keep that up, given that it's such a formidable revenue stream.

54:50What makes you think that they will just cut it out? There is, of course, the incentive to normalize relations and to restore credibility and legitimacy. But in my opinion, I think that the regime is looking at this whole landscape and thinking that they can accomplish both. Of course. They can have their cake and eat it, too. And so it's hard watching all these countries put that on the top of the agenda list. Yeah, nobody's going to say, fine, I do want diplomatic relations with my neighbors. I'm going to cut my revenue down by 90 % in order to do that. That's ridiculous. Completely ridiculous.

55:27You'd rather just be a pariah, but able to fund your military and stay in power than not be able to do any of those things. Probably end up getting executed or shot in your own house while you're sleeping or something. Right. And, but hey, we got an embassy from Qatar now reopened. That's a victory. I mean, no dictator worth their salt is going to take that deal at all. Right. And on top of that, too, what I would imagine as well, what has been discussed or at least could potentially happen is, you know, let's say some countries think that then if that's the case, if the Assad regime isn't going to back down that easily.

56:06Well, then just sweeten the deal and offer them a financial package that will, quote, make up for captagon revenues. Well, then the regime will then just take both of that. And then they'll say, oh, well, the Captagon trade is continuing. Well, that's not us. Those are the terrorists and opposition forces that are carrying out Captagon production, not us. Yeah. In fact, give us a little bit more money and we'll be able to fight those guys, too. Exactly. Instead of giving us$10 billion, give us$15 billion and we'll make sure that those pesky terrorists that are generating$10 billion a year for us are out of business.

56:39I mean, none of it makes any sense. it just boggles the mind. And it really makes me lose faith in organizations like Interpol or the UN who do so much good work when I just think, are you, what are you smoking where this is possibly going to work out for you at all? It's so dumb. Yeah, it's been very difficult to kind of see that very fine line that needs to be walked in respect to Syria. I think that there is a limit between objectivity, but then also, of course, knowing that the regime as an agent behind the Captagon trade and welcoming them into the fold with serious collaboration. I think it's always important to keep a communication line open, but inviting them to the actual table for negotiation over Captagon interdictions, it's a little, a bridge too far, I would say.

57:28So is there anything positive you can leave us with? You know, we see from the war in Ukraine, Putin invaded Ukraine, and we see the West and NATO being stronger and the European alliances are stronger. Is the Captagon thing going to be similar? where, all right, Captagon, bad news, not gonna make any real headway there, but on the plus side, maybe there's better drug cooperation between European countries, Africa, the Middle East, and the United States. I am encouraged by some of the recent steps that have been made on Captagon. And, you know, having kind of rung this alarm bell for a few years now, I am starting to see greater transatlantic cooperation between the United States, the UK, and even the EU.

58:08They all just within a matter of weeks announced sanctions targeting individual Captagon producers and traffickers affiliated with the Syrian regime in Hezbollah. That's great. And I think we are starting to make way towards a mechanism where the United States, the UK and the EU could help and provide resources and technical expertise and best practices to the states that need to confront the Captagon trade, that need to reduce both supply and demand. And I think that we're getting there. I actually think that there is an appetite to do that. And now there's a recognition of Captagon as a huge challenge.

58:47We didn't have that a few years ago. People now know what Captagon is. However, you know, the Syrian regime is being normalized and the Captagon trade is, you know, at the top of that agenda item list. And because of that, I do think that it may make some things a bit tricky. but I do think that we're moving slowly and incrementally towards greater regional cooperation which all in all is a plus. Caroline Rose thank you so much. Yeah thank you so much Jordan. Stay in touch if you ever want to try Captagon. I'll let you know when I do. Yeah I was I thought about asking but I was like the answer is obviously no because you've researched what's in it and also you're in the United States.

59:26I just feel like I don't know if I was a drug expert I'd be like ah just I'm gonna give it a shot so I have a better idea. totally yeah and people ask me all the time they're like would you try it i'm like absolutely so then i know what i'm talking about you know what i mean yeah like you'd want to make sure it wasn't the brown one that you mentioned yes or whatever exactly that sounds like something scraped off a bathroom floor exactly i want the lexus give me the lexus shit only exactly and we'll give it a shot and we'll stay up all night reading uh seizure reports written in italian Exactly, exactly.

59:58And have you like monitored that that's not the goal, but people ask and I'm they're like, would you? And I'm like, absolutely. At this point, I need to see if I'm right. Yeah. If not, then it's a lie. I take it all back. This is pretty amazing. Exactly, exactly. You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show with an undercover ATF agent that infiltrated the infamous Pagans biker gang. Everyone was saying, hey, motorcycle enthusiasts, bikers are all bad. So they did this whole study and basically out of the study, it came back and said, hey, listen, 99 % of them aren't. You know, 1 % of these bikers might be problematic or gang members or what have you, but the rest aren't.

1:00:37Well, then the bikers, the real bikers, the outlaw bikers, were like, hey, this is great. We are the 1%. We're proud of being the 1%. I mean, you know, people think these are just a bunch of morons running around partying, and they're not. They're very sophisticated in how they move their money. They're very sophisticated in their structure. and they're also very sophisticated in what they do. People are always like, oh, whatever made you decide to do a two-year undercover? And listen, I didn't sign up for a two-year undercover deal. That's just what it turned into. Very few of these run for two years.

1:01:04You're always kind of just seeing how it's going to play out and that's where some of this dumb luck comes into it. They assigned me to this hit squad inside the gang. Most of the gang members don't even know that this group exists, but it's selected by mother club members of what they consider to be their heavy hitters. you know, the ones that can do the real down and dirty work. And so Hellboy, he had approached me. He's like, hey, they want you to be a part of this. We were going to be targeting Hell's Angels and we were going to be killing them. You have to be very quick in thinking. The reason why to go undercover is from the outside, you can deal with, you know, maybe some low-level members.

1:01:43You're never getting anywhere near the leadership. The only way to do that is to go undercover in the club and go up into the ranks. I would have failed if I didn't have some dumb luck on my side. And I had plenty of dumb luck throughout this case. To hear how Ken Croak spent two years risking his life going through initiation in one of the most ruthless biker gangs in America, check out episode 673 of The Jordan Harbinger Show. Like I said, folks, I can't believe I never heard of this. It's crazy to me that Syria is rejoining Interpol and in the meetings about trafficking that they are doing, It seems like Interpol has its own issues.

1:02:19We've heard a little bit about these issues on the show before. For example, letting regimes issue red notices for regime enemies. Basically, these are like an international arrest warrant that could get a political prisoner sent back to the country they've escaped from to face torture and execution. And Russia is, or at least was doing this until they got banned from the red notice system. Bill Browder talks about that. He was in episode three and episode 681. Vladimir Putin has been after him for a while, trying to get him arrested, and in fact, did get him arrested in Spain on his way to meet government officials of Spain.

1:02:53It's a crazy story. Definitely go and listen to that. Episodes three and episodes 681. All things Captagon and Carolyn Rose will be in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com. You can also ask our AI chatbot, transcripts included in the show notes, advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support this show, all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. You heard me say it before, but I'll say it again. Consider supporting those who support the show. Our newsletter is at jordanharbinger.com slash news. You can reply to me when you get it. I go through previous episodes of the show, grab highlights, grab takeaways, reanalyze the content thereof.

1:03:29jordanharbinger.com slash news. I'd love to hear what you want out of that newsletter. Don't forget about six-minute networking, also at jordanharbinger.com slash course. Once again, a reminder that the Stitcher app will no longer work for any podcasts as of August 29th, 2023. So if you're using the Stitcher app, time to switch. If you're on Android, Podcast Addict is a good one, CastBox. And if you're on iOS, I suggest Overcast or Apple Podcasts. The Stitcher app is going away, folks. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram, or connect with me right there on LinkedIn. This show is created in association with Podcast One.

1:04:03My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Millie Ocampo, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for this show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. If you know somebody who might be interested in or should know more about Captagon, definitely share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on this show so you can live what you learn, and we'll see you next time.