Sanctioned Syrian tycoon Hamsho eyes a ‘new chapter’ after financial settlement

PARIS — Last week, internationally sanctioned Syrian businessman Muhammad Saber Hamsho completed a financial settlement with the country’s new government, a step he described as “opening a new chapter, without engaging in any debates or discussions related to previous stages.”

“We believe that Syria is moving toward a new phase defined by hope, work and building the future, through positive cooperation with state institutions, relevant authorities and the private sector in a way that serves the interests of the country and its people,” Hamsho wrote in a January 6 post on his personal Facebook page. 

Hamsho praised what he called Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s “wise policy” of “closing the past chapter and opening new horizons based on stability, joint efforts, and national unity.”

Hamsho’s settlement is part of a six-month voluntary disclosure program launched by Syria’s National Committee for Combating Illicit Gain at the end of December. The program provides for “settling financial statuses related to suspicions of illegal enrichment, which contributes to accelerating the recovery of funds,” committee chair Bassel al-Sweidan said last month.  

Announcing the settlement, the committee said in a statement that it followed “extensive investigations and a comprehensive examination of the assets and financial declarations submitted by Hamsho.”

The voluntary disclosure program “aims to achieve economic justice and ensure the transparency of assets and properties held by businessmen suspected of acquiring accounts and interests through their proximity to the former regime,” it added.

The value of funds and assets recovered from Hamsho by the committee is estimated at around $800 million, Syrian news site Enab Baladi has reported, citing unnamed sources close to the illicit gains committee. 

But the settlement, officially presented as a legal and economic step, has sparked wide debate among Syrians given Hamsho’s close ties to the ousted Assad regime and negative role in past years as one of its economic faces.

This past Saturday, demonstrators gathered in front of the illicit gains committee’s headquarters in Damascus to condemn the settlement with Hamsho and call for accountability.

Responding to the controversy over Hamsho’s settlement, Syria’s National Commission for Transitional Justice issued a statement on January 8 saying “there is no amnesty within the transitional justice process for the perpetrators of crimes and serious human rights violations, or for anyone who participated in, carried out, financed or instigated them.” It stressed “these crimes have no statute of limitations and cannot be justified or overlooked under any circumstances or name.” 

“Any administrative or economic measures or settlements that are currently being circulated are not related to the path of transitional justice, and in no way constitute an alternative to judicial accountability,” it added. 

Still, fears persist that the rehabilitation of figures like Hamsho could undermine efforts towards transitional justice, papering over the role played by economic actors tied to the regime.

Who is Muhammad Hamsho, and why are many Syrians opposed to the government’s settlement with him? How did he rise, what economic and political role has he played in Syria, and what does his return hint about the limits of accountability in a time when many are seeking justice? 

Who is Hamsho?

Muhammad Saber Hamsho was born on May 20, 1966 to a father from Damascus and a mother from the countryside of Qardaha, a town in Syria’s coastal Latakia province. He studied electrical engineering at Damascus University in the 1980s, and received a master’s degree in business administration from the Higher Institute of Business Administration (HIBA) in 2005. 

Hamsho’s father worked as an ordinary employee in Syria’s Ministry of Education. His mother also worked, but the family’s income was limited. 

In 1989, Hamsho established the Hamsho International Group, which today includes more than 20 subsidiaries active in contracting and government and residential projects, among other sectors. Notably, the start of his professional life was closely tied to his friend Mudar Huweija, the son of the head of Air Force Intelligence at the time, Major General Ibrahim Huweija. 

Hamsho’s career took off in 1996, a year that saw him rise to become a well-known businessman with close ties to Assad regime officers and their families. He later became associated with Maher al-Assad—deposed president Bashar al-Assad’s brother and former head of Syria’s 4th Armored Division—and worked closely with him as one of the economic faces used by the Assad family. He gained considerable influence within the family, ultimately becoming its second most important economic figure, after Bashar al-Assad’s cousin Rami Makhlouf. 

In the Assad era, Hamsho held a number of public positions, including Secretary of the Damascus Chamber of Commerce, Secretary of the Syrian Chambers of Commerce and Chair of the Syrian-Chinese Business Council. He also served in the People’s Assembly as a Damascus city representative. 

In the private sector, Hamsho is the chair of the Hamsho International Group. He is also the president and founder of the Metals and Smelting Council, established in 2015, and holds top positions in several companies, including: al-Shahbaa Investment and Tourism, al-Shahbaa Communications, Dawa, Hamsho Investments, Tatweer LLC, Sham Medical Care, Dawadix, Saif al-Sham Machinery, Cham Printing and Syria Art Production International.

Hamsho is also a founding partner in Jupiter Investments, which—despite US and European sanctions against Hamsho—won two contracts worth $1.5 million in 2016 to establish offices and facilities for United Nations (UN) peacekeepers deployed in the Syrian Golan Heights, according to a UN procurement report. 

In 2011, the United States (US) Treasury Department noted that Hamsho had a hand in virtually all sectors of Syria’s economy, working as a front and close partner of Maher al-Assad. Hamsho International Group has interests in metal fabrication, construction equipment, electrical machinery and chemical distribution, as well as contracting for water, oil, gas, petrochemicals, real estate and infrastructure projects, it added. 

Hamsho also works in the telecommunications trade, internet service provision, ownership and management of hotels and resorts, car rental, carpet distribution, animal farming, horse trading, printing and more. 

The tycoon has been accused of laundering money for the regime of late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, as well as signing oil deals between Iraq and Syria before the 2003 US invasion, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz. 

But for Syrians, perhaps the most important reason for public resentment toward Hamsho is his role in the systematic looting of rubble from destroyed buildings under a deal with Maher al-Assad. Under the agreement, scrap metal looted by Maher’s 4th Division was transported to Hamsho International’s metal recycling plant. “The labor is free, the material is free—he gets everything without paying a penny,” using “soldiers and militias to control the scrap metal trade,” one Aleppo businessman told the Financial Times newspaper in 2019.

During the war, Hamsho took possession of iron and metal looted by the former regime’s militias and military forces in the Yarmouk Camp, al-Hajar al-Aswad neighborhood, Idlib countryside, Hama and more. During the early months of 2019, his profits from the scrap metal trade were estimated at around $10 million per month, according to a source cited in a 2020 report by the Middle East Directions research center. 

Read more: Buildings in Damascus’ al-Hajar al-Aswad demolished, rubble sold

In the months after Assad fell in December 2024, Hamsho relinquished ownership of his iron and steel processing plant to the new government over accusations it was used to process iron and metals from neighborhoods destroyed by the former regime. 

In September 2024, the businessman’s sons, Ahmad and Amro Hamsho, appeared at the launch of the Syrian Development Fund and pledged a $1 million donation, marking the start of efforts to rehabilitate Hamsho in the new Syria. 

Western sanctions

The US government first considered imposing sanctions on Hamsho in 2009, according to documents published by Wikileaks, for “engaging in and facilitating public corruption” by senior Assad regime officials. Hamsho’s rise, and the significant and rapid growth of his companies in several economic sectors, came in concert with his association with Maher al-Assad. 

In May 2011, just over two months after the Syrian revolution began, the European Union (EU) imposed sanctions on Hamsho and other businessmen tied to the Assad regime. The US followed suit in August of the same year. 

US Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen  said at the time that Hamsho “earned his fortune through his connections to regime insiders, and during the current unrest, he has cast his lot with Bashar al-Assad, Maher al-Assad and others responsible for the Syrian government’s violence and intimidation against the Syrian people.” The sanctions against Hamsho and his company “are the direct consequence of his actions,” Cohen added. 

In June 2020, Hamsho and members of his family—his wife Rania al-Dabbas and children Ahmad, Ali, Amro and Sumayya—were sanctioned under the Caesar Act. The US State Department said at the time that the targeted individuals and companies had “played a key role in obstructing a peaceful solution to the conflict” while “others have aided and financed the Assad regime’s atrocities against the Syrian people while enriching themselves and their families.” 

In November 2020, the Arab-German Chamber of Commerce removed Hamsho from its board of directors over his ties to the Assad regime. 

This report was originally published in Arabic and translated into English by Mateo Nelson.