The article discusses how the synthetic stimulant Captagon has become integrated into the war and shadow economies of the Sudan Libya–Sahel borderlands, turning a historically marginal drug into a crucial revenue source for armed groups and political-military entrepreneurs. Using a case-study design, the study triangulates open-source reporting, international datasets, and grey literature to map production nodes, trafficking corridors, and the institutional and territorial vacuums that enable them. It argues that the Sudan Libya border triangle – anchored in western Sudan, Fezzan in southern Libya, and adjoining Sahelian interfaces – operates as a logistical hinge connecting Levantine industrial production with Gulf consumer markets and emerging European transit points. Captagon’s political economy sustains militias through taxation and direct participation in smuggling, inances arms procurement, and consolidates parallel governance, thereby entrenching conflict fragmentation and undermining stabilisation efforts. The article further shows how Captagon functions as a tool of hybrid warfare: revenues fuel coercive capacity while battlefield consumption exacerbates fviolence, erodes community resilience, and burdens already fragile health systems.