The hunt for the Assad dynasty's missing billions begins

On the back of its brutal rule, the House of Assad built an international real-estate empire

- Benoit Faucon & Rory Jones

With the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, a global hunt is now beginning for the billions of dollars in cash and assets the family stashed away over half a century of despotic rule.

The chase will likely be long, if the yearslong attempts to recover the wealth secreted overseas by Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi are anything to go by.

The Assad family has built a broad network of investments and business interests over the decades since the patriarch, Hafez al-Assad, seized power in 1970.

Among the international purchases made over the years by close kin of his son, the deposed leader Bashar al-Assad, are prime real estate in Russia, Viennese boutique hotels and a private jet located in Dubai, according to former U.S. officials, lawyers and research organizations that have investigated the former ruling clan's fortunes.

Human-rights lawyers say they are planning to track more assets, hoping to recover them for the Syrian people.

"There will be a hunt for the regime's assets internationally," said Andrew Tabler, a former White House official who identified assets of Assad family members through work on U.S. sanctions.

"They had a lot of time before the revolution to wash their money. They always had a Plan B and are now well equipped for exile."

Assad fled Syria to Russia on Dec. 8 as opposition rebels rapidly advanced on the capital, Damascus, ending his 24-year dictatorship, which followed nearly three decades of rule by his father.

Both leaders used relatives to hide wealth abroad in a system that enriched family members but also caused broader tensions within the Assad clan.

The exact size of the wealth of the Assad family and which family member controls what assets isn't known.

A report by the State Department in 2022 said a figure was hard to determine, but estimated businesses and assets connected to the Assads could be worth as much as $12 billion, or as low as $1 billion.