Flight Records List Russia Sending Tons of Cash to Syria
by Dafna Linzer, Michael Grabell and Jeff Larson, Pro Publica:
This past summer, as the Syrian economy began to unravel and the military pressed hard against an armed rebellion, a Syrian government plane ferried what flight records describe as more than 200 tons of “bank notes” from Moscow.
The records of overflight requests [1] were obtained by ProPublica. The flights occurred during a period of escalating violence in a conflict that has left tens of thousands of people dead since fighting broke out in March 2011.
The regime of Bashar al-Assad is increasingly in need of cash to stay afloat and continue financing the military’s efforts to crush the uprising. U.S. and European sanctions [2], including a ban on minting Syrian currency, have damaged the country’s economy. As a result, Syria lost access to an Austrian bank that had printed its bank notes.
2012-11-26 13:37:34
Source: http://sgtreport.com/2012/11/flight-records-list-russia-sending-tons-of-cash-to-syria/
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