Maher al-Assad

Maher for a while controlled online media site Cham Press through his brother-in-law Mohamed Hamsho, a Sunni Damascene, who is said to be a longtime front for Maher's shady business deals. On 23 May 2011, the EU placed sanctions on Hamsho for providing funding to the regime which allowed violence against demonstrators during the Syrian civil war. According to Fortune Magazine, Maher benefited from the billion dollar money laundering operation at the Lebanese al Madina bank which collapsed in 2003 at the start of the Iraq War. Al Madina was used to launder kickback money of Iraqi officials and their partners in the illegal gaming of the UN's oil-for-food programme. Sources put the amount transferred and laundered through al-Madina at more than $1 billion, with a 25 percent commission going to Syrian officials and their Lebanese allies, among the recipients of this money was Bashar Assad's brother Maher.

Al Madina bank records indicate that Maher's office manager, Khalid Qaddur, was transferred at no cost a Beirut apartment valued at $2.5 million, a transfer that investigators believe was intended to put it under Maher's control. The entire file on the Madina bank collapse is at the Lebanese Ministry of Justice, except for key parts that implicate Maher, which are still at the Lebanese Central Bank because people fear being killed over it. Read Less