A report on the rise and fall of Uncle Assad’s real estate empire
The collapse of the Assad regime in Syria has sparked multiple investigations into how and where the Assad family stashed the wealth it stole from Syria over decades of misrule, with the hope that at least some of this may ultimately be recovered to help rebuild the country after its brutal civil war.
In December 2024, Bashar al-Assad fled Damascus to Moscow, where he is reported to have purchased multiple luxury properties over several years with a value of tens of millions of dollars, and potentially stashed hundreds of millions more. But even this fortune is thought to be only a fraction of billions more held by front companies, or through intermediaries, around the world.
In a report for Al-Jumhuriya, journalist Anmar Hijazi, gives a fascinating insight into the family politics of the Assad family, the interplay of dynastic politics and geopolitics, and the techniques of financial dissimulation involved in hiding their wealth by tracing the origins of the real estate empire of Bashar’s uncle, Rifaat al-Assad, much of it revealed as a result of long-running court cases in France and Spain.
It’s a story of Caribbean front companies, Swiss banks, legal facilitators from Panama to Gibraltar, and, eventually, under pressure from the Paris-based NGO Sherpa and French investigating judges, the slow implosion of the circles of trust and fear surrounding Rifaat himself.
The story begins in Syria itself. Damascus, 1969: Hafez al-Assad, Rifaat’s brother, is winning his power struggle to become Syria’s leader. According to the testimony of Suzanne Qabanni in a much later Spanish court case, Rifaat strongarms his way to control of a building owned by her family in Damascus. He accuses Suzanne’s Greek mother of collaborating with Israel and kidnaps a 6-year-old child to make a simple point: they should do as he pleases.
Paris, 1980s. Rifaat is Syria’s vice-president, courted by everyone from Communist Romania to the Americans. A series of companies based in Liechtenstein and the Dutch-administered Caribbean island of Curaçao buy a string of French properties, including a Paris mansion which once belonged to the Emperor of Vietnam. Several million dollars are paid to representatives of the Saudi royal family to buy a large estate outside Paris. At home in Syria, in 1982, Rifaat is involved in the bloody suppression of a Muslim Brotherhood revolt in Homs, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands and earning him the sobriquet ‘The Butcher of Hama.’
1984: Having fallen out with his brother Hafez, Rifaat leaves Damascus for Moscow, then Geneva, and finally Paris. Despite later claims he was destitute at this point, another Parisian shopping spree soon follows, with dozens of apartments purchased in luxury high-rise blocks through a mixture of shell companies and family members. Some are rented out, others are used as offices.
Al-Jumhuriya looks at one of the theories of where Rifaat’s money came from at this point, suggesting it was essentially a payoff from his brother amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. Rifaat himself suggested that he enjoyed Saudi largesse.
Late 1980s: Using a dozen Panama-based companies and 29 more established in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar, the property empire expands into southern Spain with purchase of 244 parking spaces, dozens of flats, and a large area of untouched land called La Máquina, made up of pine and eucalyptus forests.
At this time, Hijazi points out, the names of Rifaat’s wives, and his son Firas, frequently appear as managers of these companies. Later, in the 1990s, Rifaat and Firas have a falling out – a Swedish newspaper interview suggests physical and psychological abuse – and his name no longer appears. In a later French trial, several witnesses testify that Rifaat was always the ultimate decision-maker, whatever his protestations to the contrary.
From 2011 onwards, following a formal complaint against him by the Paris-based NGO Sherpa, Rifaat’s legal woes start to accumulate, not only in France, but ultimately also in Spain and the UK. A number of former leading Syrian figures testify in court in France and Spain. Wealth confiscation orders follow.
In 2020, Hijazi writes, Rifaat is convicted in France on a number of charges relating to his property empire, including evading taxes, money laundering, and use of stolen funds. Rather than waiting for the outcome of his appeal, in 2021 he returns to Damascus, making up with his nephew Bashar, having previously set himself up as a potential replacement to him.
Now in his late eighties, Rifaat is thought to be in Dubai, having fled Damascus after the fall of the Assad regime there.
But, as Hijazi writes, the story is not over. It’s unclear whether Rifaat’s properties in France, Spain and the UK represent the whole of his property assets, still less those held by or for his family. The nature of the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Rifaat, over many decades, remains difficult to untangle. Finally, will Rifaat’s assets – including those confiscated or frozen in France and Spain – ever be repatriated to Syria? The work continues.
For a British connection, read this report by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
Full original by Anmar Hijazi, 15 January 2025, in Arabic here, and in English here.
Al-Jumhuriya is an independent media outlet founded in Syria in 2012.
