Toppled dictator Bashar al-Assad airlifted around £200 million in cash to Moscow in a two-year period when Syria was dependent on Russia for support.
The Financial Times has uncovered records showing that Assad’s regime flew two tonnes of banknotes into Vnukovo airport in Moscow to be deposited at Russian banks between 2018 and 2019.
The shipments came at a time when Syria was dependant on Russia‘s military support, including mercenaries from the Wagner group.
At the same time Assad’s family began buying hoards of luxury properties in Moscow, the FT reported.
Assad’s regime has been accused of looting Syria’s wealth and turning to criminal activity to finance the war against its own people.
Assad’s regime transported huge shipments of US and euro banknotes into Russia between March 2018 and September 2019.
Russian trade records from Import Genius, an export data service, show that on in 2019, a plane carrying $10mn in $100 bills sent on behalf of Assad’s central bank landed in Vnukovo airport.
The central bank then airlifted in around €20mn in €500 notes in February 2019.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with Assad during their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow on July 24, 2024
A Russian soldier rides on an infantry fighting vehicle in Latakia, on the coast of Syria
Russian soldiers stand by military pickups as they prepare to evacuate a position in Qamishli in northeastern Syria
There were 21 flights from March 2018 to September 2019 with money worth over $250million (USD).
According to the records, the transfers only started happening in 2018.
A person familiar with Syrian central bank data told the FT that foreign reserves were almost depleted by 2018.
Due to sanctions, the bank had to make payments in cash, they added.
It bought wheat from Russia and paid for money printing services and ‘defence’ expenses, the person said.
They said the central bank would pay according to what was available ‘in the vault’.
‘When a country is completely surrounded and sanctioned, they have only cash’, they said.
Russian records show that exports from Russia to Syria took place in the years before and after the shipment of money, including new Syrian banknotes, secure paper and military components.
But there is no record of the Russian lenders who received the banknotes taking any other shipments of cash from Syria or any other country.
Now even some former loyalists of the Assad regime have become angry at Assad’s escape to Moscow, seeing it as proof of his overriding self interest.
A Russian Air Force military attack helicopter at the Russian airbase at Qamishli Airport in northeastern Syria
Bahsar al-Assad ruled Syria for 24 years but his regime was toppled earlier this month by rebels
Assad is accused of airlifting millions of his people’s own money to Moscow to be deposited to lenders in the city
People celebrate at Umayyad Square in Damascus on December 8, 2024, as rebel soldiers declare that they have taken the capital
In 2015, Russia brought its warplanes to bear down on what remained of the Syrian rebels and Islamist insurgents.
The ties between the two countries became 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 insight into the regimes working said Assad and his associates seized control of the country’s troubled economy.
Asma al-Assad, first lady and ex-JP Morgan banker influenced international aid and oversaw a secretive presidential economic council.
The regime also generated money from international drug trafficking and fuel smuggling, according to the US.
Washington had previously sanctioned the regime for its cash transfers
In 2015, The US treasury accused former Syrian central bank governor Adib Mayaleh and a central bank employee of facilitating bulk cash transfers for the regime to Russia.
Records show the cash delivered to Moscow in 2018 and 2019 was delivered to Russian Financial Corporation Bank, or RFK, a Russian lender based in Moscow controlled by Rosoboronexport, the Russian state arms export company.
In March 2018 records show Syria’s central bank also shipped $2mn to another Russian bank, TsMR Bank, which has also been sanctioned by the US.
People kick a poster depicting Syrian President al-Assad after Syria’s army command notified officers that his 24-year authoritarian rule has ended
Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma al-Assad pose during a visit to the Great Wall of China at Badaling on June 22, 2004
As Russian institutions were receiving cash from Syria, Assad’s other backer, Iran, set up schemes to funnel hard currency to the beleaguered regime.
The dictator’s money men took important positions in these companies, according to corporate records analysed by the FT.
Records analysed by the FT show that key Assad lieutenants continued to move assets into Russia as western sanctions forced the regime away from the dollar banking system.
In 2019, the FT reported that Assad’s extended family had for six years bought at least 20 luxury apartments in Moscow.
In 2022 Iyad Makhlouf, Assad’s maternal cousin and a major in Syrian General Intelligence, established a property 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 the majority of Syria’s economy through a web of companies including mobile phone network SyriaTel.
But in 2020 Rami fell out of favour with Assad’s regime and Syrians with insight into the regime say Iyad and Ihab remained close to Bashar and his wife Asma.