Foreign media reported that a search for the stolen property of Bashar al-Assad's family had begun. The family of the deposed dictator has become enormously rich since taking power in Syria in 1971. According to the British daily Financial Times, Assad sent $250 million in cash to Russia. The American Wall Street Journal, in turn, assessed that discovering the family's assets would not be easy.
The Financial Times obtained documents proving that Assad sent two tons of banknotes of 500 euros and 100 dollars to Moscow. The flights took place between 2018 and 2019. Cash transports to the capital Russia coincided with the authorities becoming dependent on Damascus from the Kremlin's military support, including from mercenaries from Wagner groupsand with a series of purchases of luxury real estate in Moscow by the Assad family – emphasized the daily's website.
Even though Syria's state coffers have been devastated by the civil war, Assad and his close associates have taken control of the most important sectors of the country's devastated economy over the past six years, the FT noted.
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The Assads grew rich from the civil war
“There will be a hunt for the regime's assets internationally,” Andrew Tabler, a former White House official on the sanctions team, told the Wall Street Journal. “They had plenty of time before the revolution to launder money. They always had a plan B and now they are well prepared for exile,” Tabler added.
The exact size of the Assad estate is unknown. The family began amassing a fortune soon after taking power in Syria in 1971. The authors of the 2022 Department of State report estimated that the family's resources could range from $1 to $12 billion. The money was raised through state monopolies and the drug trade, and the profits were reinvested in areas beyond the reach of international law.
Hafiz al-Asad with his wife Anisa and children: Mahir, Bashar, Basil, Majd and Bushra (archive photo)LOUAI BECHARA/EPA/PAP
The outbreak of the civil war in Syria in 2011 opened up new financial opportunities for the Assads. “The wealth of the clan was growing while ordinary Syrians were struggling with the effects of the country's civil war,” WSJ described. The World Bank calculated that in 2022, almost 70 percent of the population lived in poverty.
In 2020 United States imposed sanctions on Bashar's wife, Asma al-Assad, saying that she and members of her family had become Syria's “most notorious war profiteers” and that the clan had “obtained … wealth at the expense of the Syrian people by controlling … ) an illegal network of connections in Europe, the Persian Gulf and other regions.
Bashar al-Assad and Asma al-Assad in a photo from May 26, 2021Hassan Ammar / Associated Press / East News
Finding property is a difficult task
However, finding and freezing the family's assets will be difficult – noted “WSJ”. Investigators who searched for billions hidden by deposed dictators Iraq and Libya they spent years “navigating shell companies and filing international lawsuits” with moderate success. According to the daily, very little of the estimated $54 billion in assets accumulated by the former Libyan regime has been recovered – a property in London worth $12 million and $100 million in cash for Malta.
Assad fled Syria for Russia on December 8when the rebels' lightning offensive was approaching Damascus, putting an end to the clan's rule: the 24-year dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad, and before that, his father – Hafez – ruled for almost three decades.
Situation in Syria (as of December 7, 2024)PAP
Main photo source: LOUAI BECHARA/EPA/PAP