Syria's central bank has nearly 26 tons of gold in its vaults, as much as it had at the start of its bloody civil war in 2011, even after the chaotic fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime, four people familiar with the situation told Reuters.
But the country has only a small amount of foreign currency reserves in cash, the same sources say.
Syria's gold reserves stood at 25,8 tonnes in June 2011, according to the World Gold Council, which cites the Central Bank of Syria as its source. That's worth $2,2 billion at current market prices, according to Reuters calculations.
The central bank's foreign exchange reserves, however, are only about $200 million in cash, one of the sources told Reuters, while another said the U.S. dollar reserves were "in the hundreds of millions."
Although not all reserves would be held in cash, the decline is significant compared to the pre-war period. At the end of 2011, Syria's central bank reported $14 billion in foreign exchange reserves, according to the International Monetary Fund. In 2010, the IMF estimated Syria's foreign exchange reserves at 18,5 billion dollars.
Dollar reserves are nearly depleted as the regime increasingly used them to finance food, fuel and Assad's war effort, current and former Syrian officials told Reuters.
Media representatives of Syria's new ruling administration and the Central Bank of Syria did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on the size of the central bank's reserves.
Syria stopped sharing financial information with the IMF, World Bank and other international organizations shortly after the Assad regime crushed pro-democracy protests in 2011 in a crackdown that turned into civil war.
Syria's new government, led by former rebels, is still reviewing the country's assets after Assad fled to Russia on December 8. The robbers briefly accessed parts of the central bank, taking Syrian pounds with them, but did not break into the main vault.
Some of the stolen money was later returned by Syria's new rulers, Syrian officials told Reuters.
The vault is bombproof and requires three keys, each held by a different person, and a combination code to open, one of the sources said.
The vault was inspected by members of Syria's new administration last Sunday, two sources said, days after rebels seized control of the Syrian capital Damascus in a lightning offensive that ended more than 50 years of rule by the Assad family.
Led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, a former Al Qaeda affiliate that has long since disavowed those ties, the new administration quickly installed a government and is consolidating control over state institutions.
Reuters was unable to access the central bank's vaults.
Bonus video:
