Meet Syria's wealthiest and most elusive man
By Tim Lister and Jamie Crawford
Imagine controlling Syria's equivalent of Verizon, its duty-free stores, a chunk of its oil industry, a TV network and its choicest property developments. Rami Makhlouf, a cousin of President Bashar al Assad, did - and maybe still does. He is by all accounts the richest man in Syria, worth some $5 billion before the Syrian economy entered what U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford calls its "sharp downward spiral."
The Makhlouf family is one of a business elite that has done exceptionally well during the Assad dynasty. And its spectacular enrichment has fed resentment among ordinary Syrians.
"It's not a question right now of Alawites versus Sunnis," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman told a Senate hearing Thursday. "It's a question of the Assad-Makhlouf mafia that has basically hijacked the entire state of Syria for four decades in order to enrich itself and protect itself against the Syrian people."
At a tearful news conference in June, Makhlouf announced he was giving up his business interests and investing the proceeds in charities to help victims of the unrest. He said then the gesture was because he was "so keen on preserving the nation, its land, its people and its leadership." Few believed him. One Syrian critic blogged: "As for Santa Claus Makhlouf, who is showering us with his deeds, could he explain to us where did he bring his first millions from?"
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/07/meet-syrias-wealthiest-and-most-elusive-man/
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