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is I'm Tarian Yeah, yeah, yeah,

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yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

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yeah. On Sunday, half half

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a century of the Assad

0:20

family ruling Syria came to

0:22

an end. Syria's brutal civil war

0:24

that war that led to

0:26

this moment many players. And

0:28

today put to put a spotlight

0:30

on one of them, An

0:32

an economist. It's like a dream. Honestly,

0:35

it's like a dream. Today

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show, the story of one Syrian exile who

0:39

made a real contribution to

0:41

the resistance while on the other

0:43

side of the world. of the

0:45

He tells us how lines of

0:47

computer code and spreadsheets can

0:49

help bring down a long -standing

0:51

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2:04

NPR. Karam Shar is an an old

2:06

economist friend of mine. mine. hello,

2:08

hello. Karam, it's so nice to nice to

2:10

see you. and I met and I

2:13

met while we were colleagues years

2:15

ago in New Zealand you were

2:17

here the the New Zealand Treasury. Yes, but

2:19

but now we meet professionally again,

2:21

but this time to talk about

2:23

the Syrian economy, which economy, all

2:25

over the news right now because

2:27

of what's just happened. of what's

2:29

exactly. mean, the exactly. I mean, the days

2:31

or so have been been... Insane.

2:34

Very momentous. We chatted momentous. We chatted

2:36

about all the events that

2:38

he is to where he is

2:40

today of the front lines

2:42

of Syrian research and advocacy. up

2:45

in Karim grew up in

2:47

Aleppo, which is one of

2:49

Syria's two big cities. his And

2:51

after studying his economics degree,

2:53

he got involved in anti

2:55

protests. This This was in 2011

2:57

when the Arab was was

2:59

awakening pro -democracy movements all over

3:01

the Arab world. world. Karam tell

3:04

his family family though. to avoid

3:06

and tell our loved ones

3:08

about these protests these also and

3:10

mean mainly to ensure their

3:12

safety. So I So I remember

3:14

actually in one of the

3:16

protests in Aleppo, we were

3:19

shouting shouting the downfall of

3:21

the regime of the most liberating

3:23

moment I think in my

3:25

life. I think in my life. feeling is

3:27

so exceptional, it's liberating. And

3:29

I remember actually someone tapping

3:32

me on the shoulder and

3:34

saying, the shoulder and as in Abu

3:36

Adib, my like, that's my nickname. turned my

3:38

head my head and saw I was my

3:40

brother. my brother. So. it turns out he

3:42

was also protesting, but we were

3:44

not telling each other. My sister was

3:46

also protesting. I came to realize

3:49

this later on. later The protests

3:51

were met with heavy crackdowns

3:53

by the Assad by the Assad and

3:55

as rebel groups gained a foothold,

3:57

a Syria descended into civil war.

3:59

war. 2012, Karam's father told him

4:02

he should leave the country for

4:04

his safety, especially given his activism.

4:06

Karam flew to Malaysia, then to

4:08

New Zealand, where he studied for

4:10

his economics PhD and was granted

4:13

asylum. That's about the same time

4:15

that I met you when you

4:17

were working at the New Zealand

4:19

Treasury, working on the economic policy

4:22

problems of a high-income peaceful country.

4:24

How was that for you? Yeah,

4:26

it was like working on another

4:28

planet, you know, it's a completely

4:30

different context. But after working there

4:33

for like three and a half

4:35

years, I just couldn't deal with

4:37

the guilt, you know, with the

4:39

guilt that I can do something

4:42

for Syria and I should do

4:44

it. So how could a young

4:46

economist on the other side of

4:48

the planet possibly make a difference

4:51

in one of the bloodiest conflicts

4:53

of recent memory? Karam put all

4:55

his time into working on Syrian

4:57

issues. He hired analysts and open-source

4:59

intelligence experts to help out. He

5:02

started looking into how countries were

5:04

using economic tools to pressure Syria,

5:06

and he found some pretty major

5:08

flaws, like in how humanitarian aid

5:11

money was leaking to the Assad

5:13

regime. like a lot of troubled

5:15

economies, Syria has two exchange rates,

5:17

the official exchange rate according to

5:19

the government and the black market

5:22

exchange rate, which is basically determined

5:24

by supply and demand. In Syria,

5:26

the government was claiming the Syrian

5:28

pound was worth more than it

5:31

actually was. So anyone wanting to

5:33

buy Syrian pounds would need to

5:35

pay the central bank more than

5:37

those pounds were actually worth. And

5:40

in 2021, when Karam was looking

5:42

at the Syrian Central Bank's website,

5:44

he saw a footnote that said

5:46

that this inflated exchange rate was

5:48

used for foreign aid. And I

5:51

was like, this is unbelievable. I

5:53

mean, the level of stealing is

5:55

just mind boggling. Yeah, so let's

5:57

break down how this played out.

6:00

Let's say I'm a UN agency,

6:02

working in Syria and I want

6:04

to rebuild a school. to pay

6:06

a local construction company in Syrian

6:08

pounds. And to do that legally,

6:11

I need to use the official

6:13

exchange rate. I exchange a million

6:15

dollars at a bank for Syrian

6:17

pounds, but I get weighed less

6:20

Syrian pounds than I would have

6:22

if I'd used the black market

6:24

exchange rate. And by Karam's calculations,

6:26

maybe $500,000 of that million would

6:29

have been eaten up through that

6:31

money exchange. Who gets to keep

6:33

all that extra money? The Assad

6:35

government. So basically it's a kind

6:37

of levy on humanitarian aid and

6:40

that is the aid that is

6:42

paid by Assad's enemies basically. It's

6:44

predominantly Western countries. Karam wrote your

6:46

report, the problem got picked up

6:49

by the Guardian newspaper, and from

6:51

there it snowballed. It just went

6:53

viral, you know, all over. We

6:55

got members of US Congress to

6:57

sign a letter to President Biden

7:00

to put pressure. There were parliamentary

7:02

questions in Europe. The US, Germany,

7:04

the UK, and some other countries

7:06

put pressure on the UN telling

7:09

them, look, we are providing these

7:11

funds. You talk to the central

7:13

bank, they either accept it or

7:15

it. it will be withheld and

7:17

Yeah, the Central Bank of Syria

7:20

reached a point after resisting for

7:22

so long, you know. They agreed

7:24

to close the gap. Did you

7:26

and your team celebrate at all?

7:29

Actually, we did celebrate, and you

7:31

can go on Twitter and see,

7:33

I was over the moon when

7:35

it happened. Of course, a lot

7:38

of remote work requires digital celebrations.

7:40

Garam estimates this action stopped about

7:42

$65 million a year going into

7:44

Assad's coffers and funding its army.

7:46

which in the context of the

7:49

tens of billions of dollars in

7:51

aid or military support given by

7:53

countries like Iran, is small. But

7:55

it was one victory over a

7:58

range of fronts trying to bring

8:00

down Assad. Other economic analysis that

8:02

Karam worked on involved reviewing who

8:04

the aid agencies were contracting with.

8:06

was horrified to learn a lot

8:09

of people who had committed some

8:11

grave crimes who were receiving these

8:13

contracts. In one case a militia

8:15

group tied to Iran that had

8:18

destroyed a city was allegedly being

8:20

paid to rebuild it. We just

8:22

showed that 31% of UN procurements

8:24

from Syria actually come from sanctioned

8:27

individuals, you know, so that is

8:29

basically Western governments funding the Syrian

8:31

government with one hand and sanctioning

8:33

it with the other simultaneously. His

8:35

analysis led to more scrutiny of

8:38

these contracts, but not all of

8:40

Karam's efforts have had heavy results.

8:42

To support his accountability work, he

8:44

relied on people inside Syria. About

8:47

seven months ago, he learned two

8:49

of them had been arrested. One

8:51

of them on some pretty serious

8:53

charges related to his work with

8:55

Karam. I mean, I think that

8:58

was truly the ugliest nightmare in

9:00

my entire life, you know, when

9:02

he was arrested, and I couldn't

9:04

sleep. This man was kept in

9:07

the notorious Seydnaya prison, where tens

9:09

of thousands of people have been

9:11

tortured and executed. He was sentenced

9:13

to death. His execution date was

9:16

set for the end of this

9:18

month. And so that meant that

9:20

with the downfall of the Assad

9:22

regime, Karam was relieved to learn

9:24

this man was among the people

9:27

leaving Sadnair prison just a few

9:29

days ago. It feels like it's

9:31

magic, you know? I mean, we've

9:33

been waiting for 54 years, you

9:36

know, for this regime, and it

9:38

just collapsed at exactly the right

9:40

moment. the right moment that saved

9:42

his contact from death. Karam spoke to him

9:44

soon after. When he was out and we

9:46

had a call on WhatsApp, I just started

9:48

crying immediately. I couldn't believe my eyes, you

9:50

know, that he's out. And while Karam is

9:52

overjoyed, he's... his judgment about

9:54

whatever government gets formed

9:56

next. gets In the

9:58

meantime, the he will keep

10:00

writing reports. He'll keep

10:02

he'll keep the numbers, because

10:05

who knows what impact

10:07

that might have. This episode

10:09

was produced by Cooper Cats This

10:11

episode was produced by

10:13

Cooper by Neil with engineering

10:15

by fact-checked was fact -checked

10:17

by Ciro Kagan Canon Cannon

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edits the show The the

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indicator is a production

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