The Smuggling "Mafia" Between Lebanon and Syria: Border Crossing Not Affected by the Fall of the Assad Regime

Abu Talha… The New Face of an Old Network

A.S., a man living in Al-Qusayr, says that the city is "more than 85 percent destroyed, with most of its basic facilities dysfunctional." The most striking thing he told us was that, after Hezbollah withdrew from the city, the people found its weapons caches in places like Wadi Hanna.

The most prominent figure on the scene today is a man known as Abu Talha, who claims to be part of the new Syrian administration's public security team, and facilitates smuggling, particularly of weapons. He holds dual Lebanese and Syrian nationalities and comes from the border area around Jousiya, one of the five main crossings between Syria and the Lebanese village of AL-Qa’a.

According to A.S., Abu Talha's activities go beyond gun running and include smuggling of diesel oil, scrap metal, and basic items that are in short supply in Syria. He also works on building alliances with influential clans and parties on both sides of the border to consolidate his control over the smuggling network.

Wadi Khaled: Journey to the Heart of the Shadow Economy

In the remote villages of Wadi Khaled, where the border between Lebanon and Syria runs through rugged mountainous terrain, many people are engaged in smuggling. Among them, we met Abu Ahmad and Riad Khalil, who areborn in the area and became involved in a world that recognises no political borders.

Abu Ahmad (not his real name), a man in his forties, had no plan to become part of a complex smuggling network. He worked for a humanitarian organization for five years, earning $600 a month. Suddenly, the organization stopped operating in his area. "I looked around for work, but it was no good," he says. He turned to smuggling solar panels, medical equipment, and food from Beirut and Tripoli to Homs and Damascus, and then moved on to human trafficking. "I’d get calls from Syrian families wanting to cross the border, so I’d make the arrangements with intermediaries on both sides," says Abu Ahmad.

Riad Khalil, on the other hand, sees working in smuggling as an inevitable commercial enterprise in these border areas. He graduated from university in 2011, but his degree gave him no way out from unemployment. "I don't love smuggling," he says.

The Amayer Clans: The Border is About ‘Trade,’ Not Smuggling

In the border village of Amayer in Wadi Khalid, the families and homes of those with Lebanese or Syrian nationalities intermingle, and the whole concept of "borders" is meaningless. Motorbikes take goods from village to village, and young people cross the mountains as easily as one would wander through a market. The clans control things according to their own rules, taking no account of borders and seeing them as natural crossing points for trade and social relations.

In an interview with Sheikh Ahmad, mayor of Amayer and one of the elders of the Arab al-Atiq clan, he refused to describe this border activity as "smuggling." He said: "I’ve got relatives in neighbouring Syrian villages. The only difference is I’ve got Lebanese nationality and they’ve got Syrian. Our relationship is based on marriage ties, friendship, and trade. These interconnections of geography and demographics make it hard for any country to stop the smuggling of goods."

According to Sheikh Ahmad, the economy of these villages depends on illegal trade - a term he prefers to smuggling. He argues that this cross-border activity prevents young people from becoming delinquents, and that working in smuggling stops them from stealing or drug addiction.

"Smuggling is a young person’s work. They may be university graduates, or former members of the army or security forces who left their jobs and turned to smuggling," he says.

Non-Permanent Crossings Along the Lebanese-Syrian Border

Over the last ten years, there has been talk of over 130 illegal land crossing points between Lebanon and Syria. A Lebanese army source, however, said that the whole border is really one single crossing point, with hundreds of shifting locations for smuggling operations.

This source says that, in the Bekaa region, there are about 53 crossing points, with a larger number in the north.They are monitored by Lebanese army towers, observation points and checkpoints.

According to this source, the 12 main crossings which have already been shut down by the Lebanese army between the north and the Bekaa, include Al-Kniseh, Qarha, Abidan, Wawiyat, Amiri, and Hajj Issa in the Bekaa; and the crossings at Qasif Abu Bakr, Hassan Nimer Nassar al-Din, Manjed al-Haq, Haydar Makhbir Nasser al-Din, Rakan al-Haj Hassan Bridge, and Muhammad Shafiq al-Haj Hassan.

But Sheikh Ahmad, mayor of Amayer, says that there are crossing points with no Lebanese security presence. The seven chief irregular mountain crossings are the "oil pipeline," the "western bridge," Abu Juhash, Abidan, Awishat, Maajir, Wadi al-Wawiyat, and Qarha.

The Lebanese judiciary and the Battle Over Classification: Is Border Smuggling/Crossing Considered Human Trafficking?

The smuggling of migrants into Lebanon is an issue that highlights problems in the performance of the judiciary and the limits of its role, particularly over the sentencing of smugglers operating along the Lebanon-Syria border, despite their small numbers compared to the scale of the activity. Article 668 of the Lebanese Penal Code (referred to locally as "migrant fraud") is the only legal reference used in cases of irregular immigration. This article does not cover all the complexities of the phenomenon. It deals with it from a narrow perspective without considering its complexity.

The Lebanese judiciary treats cases of irregular migration as "human trafficking offences," even though there are no clear legal provisions that make it a criminal offence. To classify a case as human trafficking, the court requires three conditions: use of unlawful means, intent to exploit, and actual exploitation. In reality, however, these criteria are not applied consistently. If the court rules that the act is "human trafficking," the punishment should at least five years' imprisonment for a criminal offence. But some sentences passed have been for jail terms ranging from just three months to three years, for the "offence of entering the country covertly."

The Fourth Division

Throughout Assad's rule, the Syrian army's Fourth Division, led by Maher al-Assad, was primarily responsible for the lack of control on the Lebanese-Syrian border and for facilitating the activities of smuggling networks in exchange for "taxes and kickbacks."

Information we gathered during our investigation shows that middlemen and smugglers in Syria would collect people at specific locations ready to be transported. There, drivers would sort out their status with soldiers from the Fourth Division in exchange for bribes to facilitate their crossing the border.

A Lebanese security source, who preferred to remain anonymous, says that, throughout the rule of the former Syrian regime, smuggling spread all along the Lebanese border, from the western Bekaa to the eastern mountains, including Arsal, Al-Qaa and Hermel, reaching as far as Akkar and Arida.

In all these areas "there was smuggling, including drugs and particularly Captagon. Factories spread along the border, because they were hard to reach. In Lebanon, there were only a few small factories."

In Syria, by contrast, there were large factories able to produce millions of tablets a day.

According to this source, the Fourth Division of the former Syrian army "was an enabler of the trade in drugs, and there were factories on the Lebanese-Syrian border, such as the famous plant belonging to Hassan Daqqou, who is connected to many figures inside Lebanon."

Hassan Daqqou, who holds dual Lebanese and Syrian nationality and is known as the "Captagon King," was investigated by the Lebanese intelligence in April 2021.

A source in the Lebanese judiciary - a young man in his thirties familiar with the Daqqou investigation – told us that "he has a factory for producing Captagon in the eastern mountains near Maaraboun (in Baalbek)."

Part of his factory is located in Syria and the other part in Lebanon, making it difficult for the Lebanese security services to gain access.

The immediate reason for Daqqou’s arrest "was not because of drugs, but because he bought 250 old Lebanese army uniforms to be delivered to specific people… that led to his arrest."

After the Fall of the Regime: Smuggling on the Lebanese-Syrian Border

The fall of the Syrian regime highlighted another well-known feature of smuggling on the Lebanon-Syria border. Investigating this was, however, made extremely difficult by political interference and Hezbollah's control over large parts of the border, which it uses to smuggle weapons from Iran to Lebanon through Syria. The Syrian city of Al-Qusayr was the "heart of the mystery."

In a further sign of the importance of Al-Qusayr, the city was hit several times by air strikes, in the course of the latest Israeli war on Lebanon (2023-2024). The target was Hezbollah's warehouses and weapons, as Israel’s military declared on several occasions.

Weeks after the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, a remarkable event took place on the Lebanon-Syria border. The new Syrian administration foiled a bid to smuggle a large batch of weapons and missiles into Lebanon through illegal crossings.

This incident was indicative of a long history of arms smuggling operations along the north-eastern border between Lebanon and Syria.

Al-Qusayr is separated from the border with Lebanon by around15 kilometres of flat plains and provides a link between northern Lebanon and the area south of Homs.

This area has been and continues to be a center for arms smuggling, especially following the outbreak of the war in Syria in 2011, which made it a key strategic gateway for the war.

How Does Arms Smuggling Work?

According to Munir al-Rabih, editor-in-chief of the online newspaper Al-Modon, open smuggling along the Lebanon-Syria border has been condoned since before Hafez al-Assad, right through the Syrian war and up to the present day.

He says that the outbreak of the Syrian revolution, however, and Hezbollah’s taking control, caused "complete dissolution of the border" as well as the disappearance of all existing security controls between Lebanon and Syria, and the opening of new roads and crossing points.

"Some of these roads and crossings then became official ones, and Hezbollah’s geographical, political and military duplicity of control led to the border being opened up completely, allowing various forms of smuggling to flourish."

"Later on, the whole Lebanon-Syria border area was turned into a global factory for making, smuggling, and trafficking ofdrugs," he said.

The former head of Lebanon’s military court, Munir Shehadeh, handled many cases involving smuggling and the smuggling networks between Lebanon and Syria: "The section of the border from the Shebaa Farms to Masnaa are under Israeli control, so smuggling there has come to an end. But from Masnaa towards the north, it still goes on, because of the unstable situation in Syria. Also, the disbanding of the old security forces and the formation of new ones in Syria has exacerbated the smuggling activities of gangs claiming allegiance to various factions, like Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham."

Influential Figures on the Border

The Assad regime made political and security gains from the decades of lawlessness on the border with Lebanon.

Al-Modon editor Munir al-Rabih says: "The main purpose was to smuggle weapons to Hezbollah, and these areas were a key strategic supply line for the party. And for this, anything was permitted. Hezbollah benefited financially and economically, and so did others working for it, by smuggling weapons."

Brigadier General Shehadeh argues, however, that Hezbollah does not depend on illegal crossings for its smuggled weapons, but the militia uses other routes. "Israel has more than once bombed illegal crossings in the mountains between Lebanon and Syria, but it has not closed down Hezbollah's weapons smuggling routes."

The Al-Qusayr region, which was under Hezbollah control before the fall of Assad, is now under that of the new Syrian administration.

Shehada adds: "Hezbollah resistance group doesn’t need individual weapons like Kalashnikovs and rifles. Arms smuggling for Hezbollah needs to involve something of value, like ballistic missiles, drones, and equipment to make weapons … not just sending people across remote valleys for rifles that are of no value at all."

We contacted the new Syrian administration for comment on our investigation and on its role in controlling the Syria-Lebanon border, but up to the date this report is published we have received no response.

This investigation was carried out with the support of ARIJ