Sex work, captagon and currency

At nine o'clock in the evening, I slowly steer my car onto Fayez Mansour, the highway where young sex workers once offered their bodies. Since Assad's fall, this scene has largely disappeared, just as the trade in the stimulant drug captagon has dwindled.

On the other side of Damascus, the money exchange business is booming. After years of operating in secret, traders can now buy and sell foreign currencies openly, following the collapse of the Assad regime in December 2024.

Sex work, captagon and currency: during times of civil war and under the dictatorial regime of the Assad family, these were the cornerstones of an informal economy that made up more than 70 percent of Syria's domestic product in 2023. Walking through the streets of Damascus today, one might think those days are over. However, if you take a closer look, you will quickly realise that it is not that clear-cut. 

Naturally, the Syrian parallel economy flourished during the war. Take, for example, prostitution. Due to the acute shortage of male labour, many women entered the labour market at the beginning of the civil war. 

In the absence of legal protection and control, some of these women were quickly pushed into the informal sector, including into sex work, either through coercion or economic pressure. Prostitution, which is a crime in Syria, grew rapidly over the years.

According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), there were around 25,000 Syrian sex workers in 2016. Just five years later, NGOs in Syria reported a sixty percent increase.

Sanaa*, 24, is one of these sex workers. Before the fall of the Assad regime, she worked with five other girls in a house in the Ish al-Werwer district of Damascus. At that time, she worked on behalf of "Abu Fathi", a high-ranking member of the Syrian security apparatus. He drove the girls around the city, ensured their safety and arranged clients for them. 

In return, he pocketed up to 70 percent of their wages, which ranged from $33 to $100. Abu Fathi then transferred part of the money to a higher official. The prostitution networks were sometimes controlled and managed by officers of the Air Force Intelligence Service.

With the fall of the Assad regime, this hierarchy collapsed. Abu Fathi and his backers vanished, and the nightclub where Sanaa's colleague Duaa* once worked was officially closed. Most of their former regulars—many from the Assad-loyal Shabbiha militias or wealthy families—no longer visit, hesitant to be seen in this milieu. 

For around two weeks at the end of 2024, Sanaa also kept a low profile. After the regime fell, she hid in her flat because she didn't know how life on the streets would change. But then she gradually returned to work, wearing more inconspicuous clothing. The situation is similar for many of her colleagues: they continue to work, but they no longer stand at Fayez Mansour every day.

This is also the case for 38-year-old Rawija*, who has now switched to digital communication with her customers in order to avoid the risks of public exposure. She used to have good relations with the security apparatus. An official offered her some protection in return for sexual favours. Today, though, things are different. But business continues, even if it is less obvious—and its future seems more uncertain.

The captagon boom continues

For the drug trade, the situation is similar. Film footage shows an abandoned villa in a quiet neighbourhood of Damascus, where a captagon laboratory was hidden for years. The floor is littered with white pills and equipment for manufacturing and analysing the stimulant. 

Other footage taken after the fall of the regime shows that huge quantities of the so-called "poor man's cocaine" were in the possession of the Syrian army. Under Bashar al-Assad, Syria developed into a regional centre for the production and export of Captagon – the industry flourished under his patronage. 

According to reports by the US-based Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy and the British government, Syria was behind about 80 percent of global captagon production. For 2023, the World Bank estimated the annual trade value of the substance, which is also smuggled abroad via international networks, was between $1.9 billion and $5.6 billion within Syria. If this estimate is correct, drug trafficking at that time would have eclipsed all of the country's legal exports.  

After coming to power, the new Syrian President, Ahmed al-Sharaa, announced a campaign to rid the country of the drug. As a result, the captagon trade within Syria declined noticeably—but it did not come to a complete standstill.  

"It's still being sold", says 29-year-old Imad* from the town of Jaramana, south of Damascus. The price per tablet remains unchanged at around half a US dollar in the capital, and production continues at various locations in Syria and Lebanon. The only difference from before is that many dealers and suppliers have now moved online. 

The GIGA Institute for Middle East Studies also suggests that the drug networks in Syria have not been eliminated, but have only fragmented. The means of production and the know-how still exist. New players, especially in Lebanon, continue to supply the booming market in the region, often from small laboratories. 

Evidence for this assumption came in May 2025 when Iraqi authorities reported the seizure of over a tonne of smuggled captagon tablets that had been imported from Syria via Turkey. It was the largest operation of its kind since Assad's fall.

The shadow currency market

The scene on the streets has changed, but trade continues. This applies not only to sex work and drug dealing, but also to the third pillar of Syria's informal economy: the currency exchange market. Under Bashar al-Assad, this market was controlled by hidden taxes, according to money sellers in Damascus. 

"The regime took up to thirty percent of our profits, and we were regularly arrested or blackmailed by the security forces," says one of them. Today, things are different: "There is more security now, but also less to do."

After the fall of the regime, the currency exchange businesses shifted from the alleys and street corners to unlicensed shops, where transactions are conducted openly but still without oversight.

The Syrian Central Bank has made several attempts to introduce strict licensing conditions, but has failed to enforce them. Too many Syrians view state interference in the market as a continuation of the old policy. For them, the informal currency exchange market is a counterweight to the state's monopoly on power. 

The fact that Syria, whose formal economy is still completely in ruins, is losing out on important tax revenues as a result is often overlooked in the discussion.

Whether it is sex work, drug trafficking or money trading, there is clear evidence that the informal Syrian economy continues to flourish even after the fall of Assad. In Damascus, basic human needs collide with old and new networks of power. These may be fragmented and fragile, but they are also an integral part of the new Syria. This is especially true because there is a continued lack of incentives for people to find regular work. 

Although production costs in Syria have slumped in recent years compared to neighbouring countries, and the new authorities have introduced far-reaching tax breaks, investors remain reluctant to enter the formal market. 

Many of them seem to suspect that although the country has a new look, it remains beset by the old problems. After all, little has changed in terms of the weak legal infrastructure, the lack of government support for local industry and the informal sector's deep roots in society.

*Name changed for security reasons. 

In collaboration with Kai Schnier. Translated from German by Jess Smee.