Bashar al-Assad’s central bank airlifted about $US250 million ($392 million) in cash to Moscow over 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 almost two tonnes in $US100 bills and €500 notes into Moscow’s Vnukovo airport to be deposited at sanctioned Russian banks between 2018 and 2019.
