ABC News December 10, 2024

Bashar Assad's luxury car collection seen on video abandoned after ouster

WATCH: Syrian life under Assad: Hellish prison, opulent palace

The lavish lifestyle and taste of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are on display in a video that shows the abandoned garage of the presidential palace in Damascus filled with luxury cars.

The video, verified by ABC News, shows a car collection worth millions of dollars that the defeated regime leader left behind when he fled the country as rebel forces stormed the capital over the weekend.

The person filming points at the expensive cars -- which include Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Aston Martins -- and says incredulously, "Were we even living? Watch this my dear ... we are not in Dubai!"

One of the cars appears to be a Ferrari F50, of which only 349 were ever made. One sold for more than $5.5 million in a Sotheby's auction earlier this year.

Assad resigned and fled the country on Sunday after rebels advanced into the capital Damascus, catching government forces by surprise 10 days after a lightning advance by insurgents first began.

The rebel military operations command for the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group declared that the city of Damascus was "free of the tyrant Bashar al-Assad." Rebel forces were seen looting the palace and government buildings.

Assad boarded a plane out of Damascus on Sunday morning, and Russian state media reported that he and his family are now in Moscow. A Kremlin spokesperson confirmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin granted Assad political asylum but did not share his whereabouts.

The collapse of Assad's government ended a 24-year reign that oversaw Syria's slide into brutal civil war in 2011. The Assad family had ruled Syria since 1971.

The luxury vehicles offer a glimpse of Assad's wealth, the full magnitude of which is difficult to ascertain. A 2022 Department of State report to Congress noted that the Assad family's net worth is generally estimated to be between $1 billion and $2 billion, though the department was unable to corroborate that estimate.

"The difficulty in accurately estimating the net worth of Assad and his extended family members results from family assets that are believed to be spread out and concealed in numerous accounts, real estate portfolios, corporations and offshore tax havens," the report stated.

Meanwhile, 90% of Syria's population is living below the poverty line as of March, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency. Nearly 13 million people across the country are estimated to be food insecure, the agency said.