#One_Year_of_Corruption_:_14_year’s_worth I told you this before: the financial corruption committed by Bashar al-Assad’s regime over 14 years in power has been matched by the corruption carried out by the al-Sharaa administration in just one year. And this is not merely my claim; it is based on confidential Western reports. Abu Anas al-Tayyara was a security operative within Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). He was appointed head of the Protection and Security Branch in the city of #Homs. Two days ago, HTS arrested him on corruption charges. So far, this is hardly surprising; such arrests have become routine. But the shocking part is that they reportedly found 56 kilograms of gold in his home. And let them take my eyes out if I am lying. Imagine this: a relatively small security branch, and a single individual had 56 kilograms of gold hidden in his house. God only knows how much money and how many assets he may have concealed elsewhere. I swear, I could talk about corruption from now until morning and still not finish. 1. The corruption began on the second day after liberation, when security personnel escorted former regime officers and protected them on their way from Syria to Lebanon. They allegedly charged $100,000 per person. 2. They then began raiding the homes of former regime officers. Whatever they found, they would allegedly give one-quarter to the group—Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham—and keep the remainder for themselves. One example is al-Dabbagh, who allegedly did this at the home of Abdel Fattah Qudsiya, where he reportedly found $18 million in cash and five kilograms of gold. 3. They then moved to arrangements with businessmen and former regime officers, who would reveal the locations of hidden money in exchange for receiving half of what was recovered, while the security personnel kept the other half. One example is al-Dalati, who allegedly did this with members of the Mansour family’s pro-regime militia in his village of Kafr Zita. 4. They subsequently moved to a larger-scale phase: settlements—and I am referring to settlements conducted outside the official Illicit Gains Committee. They would reach agreements with businessmen or former regime officers concerning their real estate and other assets, and then have the restrictions on those assets lifted in exchange either for large fixed sums of money or for properties transferred into the names of individuals acting on their behalf. One example cited is settlements involving drug traffickers in Douma. 5. They then moved to blackmailing every businessman who had merely operated in areas controlled by the former regime. They would build a case against him, accusing him, for example, of having paid money to Yassar Ibrahim—even though he had allegedly been forced to do so—and then give him a choice: imprisonment, paying them, or surrendering real estate and other assets. For the record, at this stage they allegedly refused to accept cash altogether. They demanded “Hijarat”—the plural of Hajara, a coded term referring to a one-kilogram gold bar. This practice is reportedly well known and widespread. 6. Once the pool of businessmen and former regime officers had been exhausted, they turned their attention to businessmen associated with the revolution, or those with no record of affiliation with the former regime or involvement in its militias. They began offering them preferential access to monopolistic deals and negotiated contracts in exchange for money or gold bars. They allegedly refused to take a percentage of the profits or an ownership stake in the project itself. 7- Small groups of security personnel allegedly financed themselves through kidnappings of businessmen and extortion for ransom, targeting figures such as Hashim al-Aqqad and producer Mohammad Qabbanḍ, among others. They allegedly coordinated with senior security officials on the condition that, if the junior operatives were exposed, they would not disclose the involvement of their superiors.