Syria’s new leaders are investigating the billion-dollar corporate empires of ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s allies, holding discussions with some tycoons as part of a campaign to eliminate corruption and illegal activities.
After seizing power in December, leaders of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group that now runs Syria pledged to reconstruct the country after 13 years of brutal civil war and abandon a highly centralised and corrupt economic system where Assad’s cronies held sway.
Sharaa Forms Committee
To do so, the executive led by new president Ahmed al-Sharaa has set up a committee tasked with dissecting the sprawling corporate interests of high-profile Assad-linked tycoons including Samer Foz and Mohammad Hamsho, three sources told Reuters.
Days after taking Damascus, the new administration issued orders aimed at freezing companies and bank accounts of Assad-linked businesses and individuals, and later specifically included those on U.S. sanctions lists, according to correspondence between the Syrian central bank and commercial banks reviewed by Reuters.
Assad-Linked Tycoons Return
Hamsho and Foz, targeted by U.S. sanctions since 2011 and 2019 respectively, returned to Syria from abroad and met with senior HTS figures in Damascus in January, according to a government official and two Syrians with direct knowledge of the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The two men, who are reviled by many ordinary Syrians for their close ties to Assad, pledged to cooperate with the new leadership’s fact-finding efforts, the three sources said.
Accused by the U.S. Treasury of getting rich off Syria’s war, Foz’s sprawling Aman Holding conglomerate has interests in pharma, sugar refining, trading and transport.
Hamsho’s interests, grouped under the Hamsho International Group, are similarly wide-ranging, from petrochemicals and metal products to television production.
Hamsho, whom the U.S. Treasury has accused of being a front for Assad and his brother Maher, did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. Foz could not be reached.
The establishment of the committee, whose members are not public, and the conversations between Syria’s new government and two of the Assad government’s closest tycoons who control large parts of Syria’s economy have not been previously reported.
Targetting Assad-Linked Businesses
The new Syrian government’s approach towards powerful Assad-linked businesses, yet to be fully clarified, will be key in determining the fate of the economy as the administration struggles to convince Washington and its allies to remove sanctions, Syrian analysts and businessmen say.
Trade Minister Maher Khalil Al-Hasan and Syrian investment chief Ayman Hamawiye both confirmed to Reuters the government had been in contact with some Assad-linked businessmen, but did not identify them or provide further details.
Khaldoun Zoubi, a long-term partner of Foz, confirmed his associate had held talks with Syrian authorities but did not confirm if he had been in the country.
“Foz told them he is ready to cooperate with the new administration and provide all the support to the Syrian people and the new state,” Zoubi said from the gilded lobby of the Four Seasons hotel in central Damascus, which Foz’s group majority owns. “He is ready to do anything asked of him.”
The two Syrian sources said Foz, who holds Turkish citizenship, had left Damascus after the talks. Reuters could not ascertain Hamsho’s whereabouts.
(With inputs from Reuters)
