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The British Sunday Times newspaper revealed what it said was the story of the fall of the famous Syrian money man Rami Makhlouf and the differences that arose with his cousin, the head of the Syrian regime, Bashar al-Assad, and the ruling family in Syria. .
In a report to the newspaper’s Middle East correspondent Louise Callagan, the newspaper recounted how the famous Syrian billionaire went from being his cousin’s supporter of war to the Syrian people to an outcast of the Assad family.
In a report called “The Syrian Money Man in Trouble with the Bashar Al-Assad Family,” the British newspaper mentioned how billionaire Rami Makhlouf, who controlled nearly 60 percent of Syria’s economy before the war, financed the Bashar al-Assad war he won, benefiting from an estimated fortune in 2008 About six billion dollars.
The newspaper reported that Rami Makhlouf was often referred to as the “Assad family cashier,” but he is now in serious trouble.
“In recent months, Syrians have carried out the unprecedented display of dirty laundry from circles closest to the regime, if Makhlouf tries to counter the Syrian government’s attempts to confiscate and freeze its assets,” the newspaper said.
“And in a series of video recordings on the social networking site,” Facebook, “Makhlouf rang amid hidden threats and the president’s embarrassing estrangement. After all his years of service, he complained that the security services were directed their employees and confiscated their work. “
“They asked me to resign,” said Makhlouf, pleading with the lion “just.”
“This was a clear indication that the family, whose way of working is often compared to mafia operations, is withdrawing itself as Assad moves to consolidate his authority over the country,” the newspaper said.
The newspaper said: “Conversations with diplomats and businessmen, with an idea of the system, revealed the revelations of the financier of family happiness. They also revealed how Assad, after winning the war, is taking the person who financed his wealth. Meanwhile, the business has opened up dirt from the ruling class in Syria for all to see. “
The newspaper also highlighted the role of the first Syrian woman, Asma al-Assad, and paved the way for her son, Hafez Bashar, as a new face of the regime.
The story told by the newspaper is as follows:
Rumors began about the campaign against Makhlouf last year, after a dispute erupted over his failure to pay millions of people who borrowed from Assad while bragging about his wealth abroad.
Last December, the Finance Minister froze Makhlouf’s assets due to what was said to be unpaid customs duties.
Makhlouf denied any connection to the company, and soon the presidency also began to take control of Makhlouf’s Al Bustan Association, a charitable organization and militia that he has long used as his own fiefdom.
Last month, Egyptian authorities raided a Syrian cargo ship that appeared to be carrying milk cans from a company owned by Makhlouf. It was soon revealed that it was full of cannabis drugs. Although Makhlouf denied any participation, this gave an indelible impression that Makhlouf was trying to enrich himself through unconventional methods.
“I think they just want a new face, because Rami has become a headache for them,” said former Syrian diplomat Bassam Barabandi, who left the regime in 2012 and now lives in Washington.
The world has always been loaded with ideas and who does everything they can; To become indispensable to the system. His hard-line father was the money man who was the son-in-law of the late dictator Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, and helped form the mafia-like military industrial complex for modern Syria.
Rami remained attentive to his father, according to several people who met him before the war, but who, like Bashar, was a privileged boy who moved to the highest circles in Damascus, and ruled Damascus as part of a second Softer generation that transformed a Soviet-style central economy into an oligarchic economy with points and connections. Mysterious in international markets.
“They wanted to show everyone by force that no one could challenge them. When we were in high school, we all wanted to buy a car, but you can’t buy a car better than a Makhlouf car, even if you can buy it, but you can’t buy it “, said. It was untouchable. “
Makhlouf once sent his guards to beat the foreign minister’s son for hitting him in a car race, the story says. The son took refuge in his father’s office, where the guards stepped aside, leaving the abandoned men assaulting him.
With his years of life, Makhlouf started collecting money and power around him, and his first great appearance was when he opened a chain of duty-free shops on the Lebanese border, allowing the wealthy class in Damascus to drive their car to supply champagne and foie gras without having to go to Beirut and smuggle goods. In the back of their cars.
“This was when we started hearing about Rami, and with the years of the new millennium, he literally became the main source of economic strength in the country,” says Amr al-Azm.
After Makhlouf acquired Syriatel, the country’s state-owned telecommunications company, Makhlouf, according to the United States Treasury, became a dairy cow.
With Makhlouf managing the economy on behalf of the President, it has become almost impossible to carry out an activity without his approval.
With Hafez, Rams’ brother, working as a top official in the security services, the family’s reach was extended in the complex system of interests of the ruling regime.
However, tensions between Syria’s most powerful families have been raging for a long time even before the war, and the Damascene community hides behind the raging enmity between First Lady Asma al-Assad, the British who wears luxury shoes. Christian Louboutin’s, and Makhlouf’s family, and former close associates speculate that personal enmity is still deep.
With the start of the Syrian revolution in 2011, the general mood turned against Makhlouf, whose name represented a synonym for generous corruption that pushed protesters to take to the streets and set fire to Sirtel headquarters.
According to interviews at the time, Makhlouf seemed to truly believe, or wish to be seen as a believer, that the opposition was nothing more than a crowd of drug users and Mossad agents who wanted to destroy the system.
However, in June 2011 he held a strange press conference announcing his retirement from economic work in what appears to be a regime sacrifice to calm protesters’ demands.
However, Makhlouf remained on the scene and, as the fighting intensified, his charitable organization expanded Al-Bustan to include a militia, which was estimated at the time to lead 20,000 people and was one of the most important components of the regime’s combat forces.
In 2014, his brother lost his favor and was excluded. Makhlouf managed to curb his problems with the presidency until last year, when Assad, who had been tied to victory, turned against him.
Perhaps Russia, which had been reckoning with the mechanized cost of its decisive role in the war, demanded that the regime begin to save itself.
“Assad will start thinking about the future that international supporters, especially Russia, may think they don’t need to pay the money, because it seemed clear that the regime would not collapse, which is the reason that led them to intervene mainly,” said one person. familiar with the regimen.
When the Makhlouf family faltered, others appeared on the horizon, and al-Dabbagh’s family, close to the first lady, gained influence, as did prominent businessmen like Samer Fawz, who made a fortune from the war.
Although the reasons for the rise of these people are complex, analysts say the fact that these ascendants are Sunnis, in contrast to the Makhlouf who belongs to the Alawite sect, may play a role in their preference, as Assad seeks to strengthen his support base.
In the long term, according to various sources, Assad will seek to clear the way for anyone who may pose a potential obstacle to his son Hafez leading.
Although Hafez Bashar is still eighteen years old and entitled to British citizenship like his mother, he is presented as the new face of the system.
“Al-Hafiz is being pushed in the same ridiculous way that Bashar has been pushed, to show that” I will be kinder, “says Amr Al-Azem.
“If Bashar was able to resist long enough to prepare his son to take over, they could turn to a new page, and he would have a chance to say that I am not a father. I have not been involved in the murder, and then he will marry a good woman like Asthma and will open the door to possible rehabilitation. “
At the same time, it is unclear how far Assad will go to remove Makhlouf’s authority. One option would be his refusal, reflecting the fate of Rifaat al-Assad, the uncle of the current president, who was punished in 1984 after a failed coup attempt.
And the life of exile did not go through Den, who posed difficulties. He is currently facing the age of eighty-two in a court in the French capital that built a French real estate empire with hundreds of millions of dollars stolen from the Syrian state.
The question is, will this be Makhlouf’s inevitable fate?
