Assad transferred $250 million in cash from Syria to Russia

Syria's central bank moved around $250 million of liquidity to Moscow over a two-year period when Syria's then dictator Bashar al-Assad was indebted to the Kremlin for military support and his relatives were secretly buying assets in Russia.

This was revealed by the Financial Times, which uncovered documents according to which the Assad regime, despite being desperately short of foreign currency, flew almost two tonnes in banknotes to Moscow's Vnukovo airport between 2018 and 2019, depositing them with sanctioned Russian banks. The cash consisted of $100 and EUR 500 banknotes, according to the Financial Times reconstruction.

The unusual transfers from Damascus underline how Putin's Russia, a crucial ally of Assad who provided him with military support to prolong his regime, became one of the most important destinations for Syrian cash as Western sanctions for the occupation of part of Ukraine's Donbass since 2014 pushed it out of the international financial system.

Russian trade records from Import Genius, a company that provides export data, show that on 13 May 2019 a plane landed at Moscow's Vnukovo airport carrying $10 million in $100 notes sent on behalf of Assad's central bank. In February 2019, the central bank transported around 20 million euros in 500-euro notes. In total, from March 2018 to September 2019, there were 21 flights with a declared value of more than $250 million.