Ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad airlifted around £200m in cash to Moscow over a two-year period when Syria was reliant on Russian support.
financial time has uncovered records showing that the Assad regime brought two tons of banknotes to Vnukovo airport in Moscow to be deposited in Russian banks between 2018 and 2019.
The shipments arrived at a time when Syria was dependent on military support from Russia, including mercenaries from the Wagner group.
At the same time, Assad’s family began purchasing large quantities of luxury properties in Moscow, the Financial Times reported.
The Assad regime has been accused of plundering Syria’s wealth and resorting to criminal activities to finance the war against its own people.
The Assad regime transported huge shipments of US and euro banknotes to Russia between March 2018 and September 2019.
Russian trade records from Import Genius, an export data service, show that in 2019, a plane carrying $10 million in $100 bills sent on behalf of Assad’s central bank landed at Vnukovo airport.
The central bank then transferred around €20 million in €500 notes by air in February 2019.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) shakes hands with Assad during their meeting at the Moscow Kremlin on July 24, 2024.
A Russian soldier rides in an infantry fighting vehicle in Latakia, on the coast of Syria.
Russian soldiers wait next to military trucks as they prepare to evacuate a position in Qamishli, northeastern Syria.
There were 21 flights from March 2018 to September 2019 with a value of more than 250 million dollars (USD).
According to records, the transfers only began to take place in 2018.
A person familiar with Syrian central bank data told the Financial Times that foreign exchange reserves were almost depleted in 2018.
Due to the sanctions, the bank had to make cash payments, they added.
He bought wheat from Russia and paid for money-printing services and “defense” expenses, the person said.
They said the central bank would pay based on what was available “in the vault.”
“When a country is completely surrounded and sanctioned, it only has cash,” they said.
Russian records show that Russian exports to Syria took place in the years before and after the money was sent, including new Syrian banknotes, secure paper and military components.
But there is no record that the Russian lenders who received the notes received other cash shipments from Syria or any other country.
Now even some former loyalists of the Assad regime have been angered by Assad’s escape to Moscow, seeing it as evidence of his overriding self-interest.
A Russian Air Force military attack helicopter at the Russian air base at Qamishli airport in northeastern Syria.
Bahsar al-Assad ruled Syria for 24 years, but his regime was overthrown earlier this month by rebels.
Assad is accused of airlifting millions of his own people’s money to Moscow to deposit with moneylenders in the city.
People celebrate in Damascus’ Umayyad Square on December 8, 2024, as rebel soldiers declare they have taken the capital.
In 2015, Russia sent its warplanes to attack what remained of Syrian rebels and Islamist insurgents.
The ties between the two countries grew deeper as Russian military advisers bolstered Assad’s war effort and Russian companies became part of Syria’s lucrative phosphate supply chain.
Over the past six years, people with knowledge of the regimes in place said Assad and his associates took control of the country’s troubled economy.
Asma al-Assad, first lady and former JP Morgan banker, influenced international aid and oversaw a secretive presidential economic council.
The regime also generated money from international drug and fuel trafficking, according to the United States.
Washington had previously sanctioned the regime for its cash transfers.
In 2015, the US Treasury charged former Syrian central bank governor Adib Mayaleh and a central bank employee with facilitating massive cash transfers from the regime to Russia.
Records show that cash delivered to Moscow in 2018 and 2019 was given to the Russian Financial Corporation Bank, or RFK, a Moscow-based Russian lender controlled by Rosoboronexport, the Russian state arms export company.
In March 2018, records show that Syria’s central bank also sent $2 million to another Russian bank, TsMR Bank, which has also been sanctioned by the United States.
People kick down a sign depicting Syrian President al-Assad after the Syrian army command notified officers that his 24-year authoritarian rule had ended.
Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma al-Assad pose during a visit to the Great Wall of China in Badaling on June 22, 2004.
While Russian institutions received cash from Syria, Assad’s other backer, Iran, created plans to funnel hard currency to the beleaguered regime.
The dictator’s money men held important positions in these companies, according to corporate records analyzed by the Financial Times.
Records analyzed by the Financial Times show that Assad’s key lieutenants continued to move assets to Russia as Western sanctions forced the regime to move away from the dollar banking system.
In 2019, the Financial Times reported that Assad’s extended family had purchased at least 20 luxury apartments in Moscow over six years.
In 2022, Iyad Makhlouf, Assad’s maternal cousin and a specialist in Syrian General Intelligence, established a real estate company in Moscow, co-owned by his twin brother Ihab, called Zevelis City, Russian corporate records show.
Iyad’s brother, Rami Makhlouf, was the regime’s most important businessman and was once believed to control most of the Syrian economy through a network of companies that included the SyriaTel mobile phone network.
But in 2020, Rami fell out of favor with the Assad regime, and Syrians with knowledge of the regime say Iyad and Ihab remained close to Bashar and his wife Asma.