Syria Dictator Transfers $250m In Cash To Moscow

Bashar al-Assad’s central bank airlifted around $250mn in cash to Moscow in a two-year period when the then-Syrian dictator was indebted to the Kremlin for military support and his relatives were secretly buying assets in Russia. The Financial Times has uncovered records showing that Assad’s regime, while desperately short of foreign currency, flew banknotes weighing nearly two tonnes in $100 bills and €500 notes into Moscow’s Vnukovo airport to be deposited at sanctioned Russian banks between 2018 and 2019. The unusual transfers from Damascus underscore how Russia, a crucial ally to Assad that lent him military support to prolong his regime, became one of the most important destinations for Syria’s cash as western sanctions pushed it out of the financial system. Opposition figures and western governments have accused Assad’s regime of looting Syria’s wealth and turning to criminal activity to finance the war and its own enrichment. The shipments of cash to Russia coincided with Syria becoming dependent on the Kremlin’s military support, including from Wagner group mercenaries, and Assad’s extended family embarking on a buying spree of luxury properties in Moscow. David Schenker, who was US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs from 2019 to 2021, said the transfers were not surprising, given that the Assad regime regularly sent money out of the country for “a combination of securing their ill-gotten gains and Syria’s patrimony abroad”. “The regime would have to bring their money abroad to a safe haven to be able to use it to procure the fine life… for the regime and its inner circle,” he said. “Russia has been a haven to the Assad regime’s finances for years,” said Eyad Hamid, senior researcher at the Syrian Legal Development Programme, noting that Moscow became a “hub” for evading western sanctions imposed after Assad brutally put down an uprising in 2011. Assad’s escape to Moscow as rebels closed in on Damascus has even enraged some former regime loyalists, who see it as proof of Assad’s overriding self-interest.