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– Bashar al-Assad has fled Syria.
Driven out of Damascus. Syrian rebels overthrew Bashar al-Assad, who had been in power in Syria for 24 years. The leader and his family fled on the night of December 7 to 8, towards Moscow, according to Russian news agencies. After 14 years of civil war, the takeover of Damascus by the Islamists of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) marks a turning point in the country's history.
The 59-year-old has ruled the country since July 2000, following the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad. His departure marks the end of half a century of the Assad dynasty, his father having taken over as head of Syria in 1970, after a coup d'état. Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma have for years exercised major economic influence in the region. As for the Assad family's fortune, it is difficult to estimate precisely due to the opaque nature of their assets. However, reports suggest it could be worth several billion dollars.
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Hidden billions and shell companies
In 2022, in a report requested by Congress, the US State Department claimed to have a “inaccurate estimate” of the wealth of the Assads. “Estimates based on publicly available information generally place the Assad family fortune at between $1 billion and $2 billion.”specifies the public part of the report. These figures correspond to the fortune of the fugitive president, but also of his brother, his sister, his cousins and his uncle. The State Department said it did not have enough information on the assets of Bashar al-Assad's three children, Hafez Bashar, Zein and Karim to include them.
According to the authors of the document, the fortune of the clan could be much higher: the Assads are suspected of owning more property under assumed names or hidden by opaque arrangements. These practices would have been facilitated in particular thanks to the support of Russia, as revealed in 2022 byONG Global Witness. Through Mudalal Khouri, a financier of the Moscow regime, the Assads allegedly set up a money laundering network aimed at “supporting the regime’s weapons programs,” “purchasing chemicals,” “fuel supply” as well as the“avoidance of sanctions” international. US congressional report says Assad family heads a “complex system, including shell companies and front companies, which serves as a tool for the regime to access financial resources.”
On the night of Saturday December 7 to Sunday December 8, after the departure of Bashar al-Assad, part of the presidential palace, located in Damascus, was set on fire. Just two kilometers away, dozens of men, women and children entered the Assads' palatial residence, looted after it was taken by rebels. Some immortalized the scene on video. “Treat yourself, today we’re having a blast!”exclaims one of the Syrian rebels in a sequence broadcast online. “Who wants a Lamborghini for victory?”asks one of them.
These images reveal the splendor in which the former Syrian president lived, cruelly contrasting with the ravages of the civil war, which caused thousands of deaths and displaced people. Already in 2012, confidential documents published by The Guardian highlighted the leader's extravagant lifestyle, including sumptuous purchases of furniture and jewelry.
The gray areas around the wealth of the Assad regime
The fortune of the Assad clan is all the more complicated to estimate as the family has for a long time been involved in the trafficking of captagon, a synthetic drug of which Syria is said to be the main producer. It is originally a German drug based on fenetylline, a psychostimulant from the amphetamine family, prescribed against hyperactivity or depression.
Classified as a narcotic in 1986, captagon is no longer marketed. But it continues to be distributed via a contraband trade which has developed particularly in the Middle East. THE New Yorker states in an article published on November 4, 2024 that the “Assad regime controls (…) a large part of the captagon trade and rakes in billions of dollars per year”. The “The most important figure in the government's production and distribution of captagon is believed to be the president's younger brother, Maher al-Assad”. The American newspaper estimates the amphetamine trade in Syria at approximately “ten billion dollars”. For comparison, the country's official gross domestic product is nine billion dollars.
Furthermore, a report published in 2022 of the American think tank Center for strategic and International Studies (CSIS) establishes that the regime of Bashar al-Assad has diverted international aid sent to Syria. In 2020, around 60 million dollars out of the 113 million received were allegedly diverted via this system. Between 2019 and 2020, losses would amount to $100 million, calculated the CSIS, which adds that the figure is probably underestimated.
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