Top drug lord and Assad cousin arrested in Damascus sting operation
The Ministry said that al-Assad was captured as part of a larger effort to bring justice to the people of Syria and break up criminal networks that were still active during the Assad era. Al-Assad was long thought to be one of the country's most notorious drug traffickers and a key figure in a number of serious crimes that happened while the regime was in power.
Al-Assad was being watched closely by the rest of the world. In 2023, both the U.S. Treasury and the European Union put sanctions on him because he was part of a large-scale drug dealing network in the area that helped pay for the former government.
In addition to his work in the drug trade, Wasim al-Assad was in charge of a militia group in the coastal city of Latakia. This group was accused of many crimes against citizens, such as putting down large protests in the early years of the Syrian uprising.
In the days before the government fell on December 8, 2024, al-Assad wrote on Facebook that armed support units would be formed in Latakia and the nearby areas to help the military. This showed how actively he was involved in helping the regime in its last days.
After Bashar al-Assad's government fell, the Syrian government began a national crackdown on people they thought were guilty of war crimes, corruption, and power abuses. People think that the arrest of Wasim al-Assad was a big step forward in that effort.
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