SYRIA'S EMPIRE OF SPEED

Bashar al-Assad's regime is now a narco-state reliant on sales of amphetamines.

- ED CAESAR

Before Marai al-Ramthan started the Brande Ramthan started the job that made him rich and got him killed, he was a sheepherder. A handsome and resourceful man in his thirties, he lived in southern Syria, in the scrubby area near Jordan, and had family on both sides of the border. There is a long tradition of petty smuggling in the region. His surname is derived from Ar-Ramtha, a city on the northern edge of Jordan which grew prosperous through the illicit transit of goods in and out of the country.

Until the civil war in Syria began, in 2011, a group of Jordanians known as bahhara (or "sailors") were licensed to drive taxis across the border. There were about eight hundred such drivers, and everybody understood the real purpose of their journeys: to return to Jordan, where the cost of living is sixty per cent higher than in Syria, with cheap goods.

The bahhara brought back fresh produce, cigarettes, and other everyday items, and sold them at a considerable profit. Jordanian customs officials and the bahhara had an informal deal: for a bribe, a driver could bring trunk loads of Syrian products into the country tax free.

When the civil war broke out, rebels opposing the regime of President Bashar al-Assad seized control of the city of Daraa, across the border from Ar-Ramtha. As the two sides fought in the streets, the bahhara trade came to a standstill. According to a report by the Carnegie Middle East Center, eighty per cent of Ar-Ramtha's stores had closed by 2017. The following year, Assad's forces recaptured Daraa, and the border crossing reopened. Many of the bahhara resumed their old profession.

A few locals pursued a more lucrative opportunity: drugs. Marai al-Ramthan was one such entrepreneur. He began moving large volumes of captagon, an amphetamine, into Jordan. To avoid checkpoints, he hired Bedouins to transport the drug through the desert. Before long, he had an army of hundreds of smugglers.