The Richest Dictators In History

So Basically November 20, 2025
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So Basically

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Explaining world events, history, people & geopolitics

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The Richest Dictators In Modern History - How They Got So Rich & What Happened To Them Download War Thunder for FREE and get your bonus on PC & Console: https://wtplay.link/sobasically IOS & Android link: https://wtm.game/sobasically Thanks to War Thunder for sponsoring this video These are the stories of the richest dictators in modern history. Explaining how these leaders took power, how they started to make money, how they spent and where they hid their money and what ended up happening to them and their fortunes. For simplicity most of the numbers will be equated to their value in US dollars as there are many different currencies involved. Not all of the numbers are adjusted for inflation to today's value so some past figures would be even higher. This list doesn’t include monarchs as they are technically different to dictators even if they have similarities, which is a topic for a different video. Almost every person in this also has a long list of war crimes, atrocities, and brutal treatment of their own people but this video is meant to focus mainly on their finances instead of analysing their character or how they were as leaders. These videos take a significant amount of work to create, everything is done by me without any team or employees which currently limits the quantity of uploads. If you enjoy the content and would like to see it evolve and come out more often, consider joining the Patreon or becoming a YouTube Member by hitting the Join button and you'll get some unique perks. Thank you! Support on Patreon: http://patreon.com/SoBasicallyExplained Support on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClkW_kX06RQ5kMiw1QypdPA/join Special thank you to Nora de la Peña for being the first YouTube member! Chapters: 0:00 Intro 0:54 Bashar al Assad 4:51 Kim Jong Un 9:00 Saddam Hussein 12:45 Ferdinand Marcos 18:05 Suharto 22:15 Ali Abdullah Saleh 25:00 Muammar Gaddafi 29:16 Vladimir Putin Sources: Hafez al Assad & Bashar al Assad - Syria https://www.state.gov/bureau-of-near-eastern-affairs/releases/2022/04/report-to-congress-on-the-estimated-net-worth-and-known-sources-of-income-of-syrian-president-bashar-assad-and-his-family-members-section-6507-of-the-national-defense-authorization-act-for-fiscal-year https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/mideast-syria-tycoon https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/stories/rami-and-hafez-makhlouf Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un - North Korea https://www.hrnk.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/RoAE_Web_0407.pdf https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2009/09/office-39-200909 https://www.reuters.com/article/world/north-korea-uses-cash-couriers-false-names-to-outwit-sanctions-idUSBRE91F00L Saddam Hussein - Iraq https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/js1244 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/12/21/more-than-1-billion-in-iraqi-assets-found-in-foreign-banks/a9db10e3-c897-47b4-8c4e-c4de1b8a3031 https://www.ft.com/content/a2d093a2-3753-11d9-a8bb-00000e2511c8 Ferdinand Marcos - Philippines https://pcgg.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/FINAL-CHAIRMANS-OUTGOING-REPORT_page-0001.pdf https://star.worldbank.org/asset-recovery-watch-database/ferdinand-and-imelda-marcos-switzerland-chapter https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/07/10bn-dollar-question-marcos-millions-nick-davies Suharto - Indonesia https://star.worldbank.org/asset-recovery-watch-database/mohamed-suharto https://www.transparency.org/en/press/suhartos-family-must-return-looted-wealth https://time.com/archive/6956691/the-family-firm/ Ali Abdullah Saleh - Yemen https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/s_2015_125.pdf https://www.reuters.com/article/world/yemen-ex-president-amassed-up-to-60-billion-colluded-with-rebels-un-experts-idUSKBN0LT1C5/ https://cifar.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Yemen-Assets-EN.pdf Muammar Gaddafi - Libya https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/02/libya-investing-wealth-nation https://www.reuters.com/article/world/africa/libyan-assets-frozen-by-us-exceed-34-billion-official-idUSTRE7364EQ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/27/gaddafi-family-assets-frozen-queen Vladimir Putin - Russia https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/stealing-russia-blind https://theweek.com/vladimir-putin/956928/what-is-vladimir-putins-net-worth https://time.com/5934092/navalny-putin-palace-investigation

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