AN ENGINEERING STUDENT TURNED METH COOK IN LEBANON
Vice.com
Sept 10 2014
By Atticus Hoffman Sep 10 2014
In the post-Walter White world of methamphetamine trafficking,
the stereotype of the average meth cook has been broken down, but
even so, Apo, a name he used to protect his identity, did not fit the
mold. He showed up at an East Beirut bar, where we’d arranged to meet,
in a nicely pressed pink Ralph Lauren shirt. He was well groomed,
slightly shy, and had an air of sweetness that didn’t match up with
the image of Mickey Rourke in Spun. The “Walter White of Lebanon”
had agreed to talk to me now that some time had passed since prison.
Apo was raised 20 minutes outside Beirut. He described himself as “not
a perfect student, but good. The best in his family, at least.” Like
so many other Lebanese youth, he continued his education after high
school, and began a mechanical engineering degree at a major Lebanese
university.
In 2005, two years into his Mechanical Engineering degree, Apo’s
trajectory changed dramatically. It started with the emergence of
the underground party scene in Beirut. Trance and house broke onto
the Lebanese music scene, and like in so many other countries, drugs
followed–mostly ecstasy, cocaine, and speed. The scene was centered
around smaller nightclubs–“BO18,” an old converted bomb bunker, and
“The Basement,” now defunct–as well as larger venues like Forum De
Beyrouth and Biel, an event space on the waterfront. Both Apo, and
a friend of his who asked to be called Sami, described it as their
favorite moment growing up in Lebanon, a time of naïve youthfulness.
They agreed, “Lebanon was banging.”
Apo and his friends spent weekend after weekend chasing girls
and raving. But they were curious about the chemicals they were
experimenting with. They scoured the web to find out about various
combinations of chemicals that made up the pills they were taking,
but their interest honed in on a drug that was possible for them to
produce. “It was like heaven, ignoring the side effects,” Apo noted
when describing his initial impression of Meth. “You’re productive,
not sleepy, friendly,” he added. A set of insecurities every young
adult can relate to.
They started cooking for their friends. It was a cheap alternative to
the pricier drugs on the market, and it wasn’t a crowded field. There
had been rumors of an Armenian cook who had escaped to Yerevan years
before, but apart from that Meth was a new phenomenon for Lebanon. Apo
told me it took him seven months to get the hang of cooking. They
sourced Sudafed from local gym clubs, who sold it as an appetite
suppressant. The precursor chemicals, which are hard to source in
America, were purchased from the same companies supplying their
university laboratories. He and his friends set up makeshift labs
wherever they could, but usually in the basement of their parents’
apartment buildings.
One day, Apo and his crew had started a cook in one of their parent’s
apartments. Half way through the process, everything lit on fire. It
was out of control, fire spread quickly to the balcony. One of
his friends grabbed the fire extinguisher to put it out, but the
extinguishing chemicals mixed with the meth fumes, blanketing the
entire apartment in thick white dust. Seconds later, Apo’s friend’s
mom walked through the door, astonished. They told her it was a
university experiment gone wrong. She bought it.
“It was just boys being boys,” Apo told me. “The beginning was go
with the flow.”
Once the gang perfected its cooking method, they gave out product
to their closest friends, and partied harder than ever. In a country
where youth unemployment is expected, Apo had found his purpose. “It’s
an art; you’re painting something.”
His art quickly turned to business. Within seven months, Apo and his
crew saw a potential market when friends of friends came knocking. One
batch every two weeks turned into two every week. They were happy
to be making money, but they were also making addicts, themselves
included. “A year of good fun and then paranoia kicks in, a lack of
sleep and you get thin. When you want to sleep, you can’t sleep,”
Apo explained. This, in combination with the influx of money, created
an atmosphere of distrust among the original friends, who were now no
more than greedy partners. What had started as “meth among friends,”
had become a drug operation that spread beyond Apo’s largely Armenian
crew and inadvertently infiltrated the Lebanese party scene. Meth
was on the rise in Beirut.
The crew had managed to stay beneath the police radar, but Lebanon is a
small country. Unbeknownst to them, one of their customers was also an
informant for the police. The informant had kept quiet as long as he
was getting his supply. But the partners’ paranoia, driven by a lack
of sleep, left them with the feeling the operation was spinning out
of control. They started to say no to people. Around the same time,
Apo began to understand the depth of his own addiction. He wanted
out and headed to a hospital to get clean. Meanwhile, Apo’s partner
had cut off the informant, who then headed to the police.
Four days after Apo’s release from the hospital, the cops came
knocking. They knew everything. He was tried and convicted, and sent
to Rumieh, the largest prison in Lebanon, where he served four years.
For a boy brought up within the traditional Lebanese family structure,
prison was an adjustment. It took him six months to find his feet. He
used Xanax to control his anxiety, but he was determined. “If people
throw you in a desert, you just have to survive,” he told me.
Apo was released from prison, still this side of thirty. He returned
to school, where he is now finishing his bachelor’s degree. He said
the police are letting him live a free life and don’t check up on
him any more. He’s not proud of what he’s done but, “It’s definitely
a story to tell your kids when they grow up.” He has a new group of
friends, but in regard to his old partners, he said, “I still respect
them. Shit happens.”