Fallen dictator Bashar al-Assad airlifted around £200m in cash to Moscow during the two years Syria depended on Russian support.
The Financial Times has uncovered records showing the Assad regime airlifted two tons of banknotes to Moscow’s Vnukovo airport for deposit in Russian banks in 2018-2019.
The shipment took place at a time when Syria was dependent on Russian military support, including mercenaries from the Wagner Group.
At the same time, Assad’s family began stocking up on luxury real estate in Moscow, the FT reported.
Assad’s regime is accused of plundering Syria’s wealth and engaging in criminal activity to finance its war against its own people.
Between March 2018 and September 2019, the Assad regime shipped large quantities of US and Euro banknotes to Russia.
According to Russian trade records provided by export data service Import Genius, a plane carrying $10 million in $100 bills sent on behalf of the Assad central bank landed at Vnukovo airport in 2019.
The central bank then airlifted around 20 million euros in 500 euro banknotes in February 2019.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (Republican) shakes hands with President Assad during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, July 24, 2024.
Russian soldiers ride an infantry fighting vehicle in Latakia on the Syrian coast
Russian soldiers prepare to evacuate their positions in Qamishli, northeastern Syria, and wait by a military pickup.
From March 2018 to September 2019, there were 21 flights with a value of more than $250 million (USD).
According to records, the transfer began in 2018.
Sources familiar with Syria’s central bank data told the FT that foreign exchange reserves were nearly depleted by 2018.
Because of the sanctions, banks had to make payments in cash, they added.
The company bought wheat from Russia and paid for money-printing services and “defense” costs, the person said.
They said the central bank would pay according to what was available “inside the vaults.”
“When a country is completely surrounded and under sanctions, all they have is cash,” they said.
According to Russian records, exports from Russia to Syria took place in the years before and after the shipment of currency, including new Syrian banknotes, safe banknotes, and military parts.
However, there is no record that the Russian financiers who received the notes transported the cash from Syria or any other country.
Now, even some of Assad’s former supporters are outraged, seeing his flight to Moscow as proof of his overriding self-interest.
Russian Air Force military attack helicopter at the Russian Air Force base at Qamishli Airport in northeastern Syria
Bahsar al-Assad ruled Syria for 24 years before being overthrown by rebels earlier this month.
President Assad is accused of airlifting millions of dollars of his own citizens’ personal property to Moscow and depositing it with financiers in the city.
People celebrate in Umayyad Square in Damascus as rebel soldiers declare they have taken over the capital on December 8, 2024.
In 2015, Russia sent fighter jets to quell the remnants of Syrian rebels and Islamic extremists.
The bond between the two countries has become even stronger Russian military advisers strengthened Assad’s war effort, and Russian companies became part of Syria’s lucrative phosphate supply chain.
Over the past six years, Assad and his allies have seized control of the country’s troubled economy, people with knowledge of the regime’s movements said.
First lady Asma al-Assad, a former JPMorgan banker, influenced international aid and oversaw the secret Presidential Economic Council.
The US says the regime also made money from international drug and fuel trafficking.
Washington had previously sanctioned the administration over cash transfers.
In 2015, the U.S. Treasury Department accused former Syrian Central Bank Governor Adib Mayaleh and central bank officials of facilitating large cash transfers from the Syrian regime to Russia.
Records show that the cash handed over to Moscow in 2018 and 2019 was handed over to Russian Finance Corporation Bank (RFK), a Moscow-based Russian financier controlled by Russian state arms export company Rosoboronexport. Ta.
Records from March 2018 show that Syria’s central bank also transferred $2 million to TsMR Bank, another Russian bank that is also under U.S. sanctions.
People kick a poster depicting Syrian President al-Assad after the Syrian military command informs its officers that 24 years of dictatorship is ending.
Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma al-Assad pose during a visit to the Great Wall of Badaling on June 22, 2004.
As Russian agencies received cash from Syria, Iran, another supporter of President Bashar al-Assad, planned to funnel foreign currency to the beleaguered regime.
Company records analyzed by the FT show that the dictator’s financiers held key positions in these companies.
Records analyzed by the FT show that key Assad top lieutenants continued to move assets to Russia as Western sanctions kept Assad away from the dollar banking system.
In 2019, the FT reported that Assad’s extended family had purchased at least 20 luxury apartments in Moscow over a six-year period.
Iyad Makhlouf, a Syrian general informatics major and a maternal cousin of President Assad, founded a real estate company in Moscow called Zeveris City, which is co-owned by his twin brother Ihab, Russian business records have revealed. did.
Iyad’s brother, Rami Makhlouf, is the regime’s most important businessman and was once thought to control much of Syria’s economy through a network of companies including the Syrian Tel mobile phone network.
But in 2020, Rami lost support for Assad’s government, and Syrians with knowledge of the regime say Iyad and Ihab remained close allies of Bashar and his wife, Asma.