By OCCRP
The cases are still rare where organized crime and wholesale corruption get backed up by a repressive, autocratic government.
As in Venezuela, North Korea, and Russia, deposed Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s regime was such a case, characterized by centralized control, suppression of dissent, and a reliance on a powerful security apparatus. As prisons get emptied and mass graves are dug up, the scale of Assad’s brutality toward his own people is, sadly, becoming clearer.
Coming to power in 2000 after the death of his father, Assad’s early promises of political liberalization quickly gave way to authoritarian practices. Part of the Arab Spring, the 2011 Syrian uprising challenged his rule and escalated into a punishing civil war that lasted until Assad’s ouster this month.
His forces were accused of widespread human rights abuses, including torture, murder, the use of chemical weapons, mass detentions, and the targeting of civilians.
Financed by Captagon production and other forms of organized crime, such as human and cigarette smuggling, antiquities theft, and the arms trade, Assad’s tenure has spread violence, drugs, and corruption throughout the region.
A 2023 OCCRP investigation with BBC News Arabic, Suwayda24.com, and Daraj.com into the Captagon trade showed how Syria’s descent into a narco-state pitted Assad’s drug traffickers against security forces in Jordan and Lebanon.
Assad fled Syria with an estimated tens of billions of dollars in looted wealth to a life of comfortable exile in Russia, leaving behind a legacy of destruction.
“In addition to being a dictator like his father before him, Assad added unimaginable dimensions of crime and corruption, ruining the lives of countless people even outside the border of his own country,” said Daraj.com co-founder Alia Ibrahim, who was a judge in the contest this year. “The political, economic, and social damage caused by Assad, both in Syria and in the region, will take decades to overcome.”
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