Muhammad Bashar Kiwan

From 21 to 24 November 2022, Kiwan was tried for embezzlement and money laundering of Comorian public funds allegedly diverted from the economic citizenship program. On 28 November 2022, Bashar Kiwan was found guilty of criminal fraud, money laundering, and embezzlement of Comorian public funds. He was sentenced in to 10 years in jail.

Bashar Kiwan was a member of the Syrian-Iranian Business Council (SIBC) and served as an intermediary for the Iranian regime to purchase real estate in Syria alongside his close business associate Mazen Al Tarazi. In March 2019, Mazen Al Tarazi was arrested in Kuwait and charged with money laundering.

Kiwan was the mastermind behind an economic citizenship program that he launched with his close associate, former Comorian president Abdullah Sambi. In 2018, Kiwan, two former Comoros presidents, and several other associates were criminally charged in relation to embezzlement of millions of euros diverted from this program to Kiwan and his associates.

Kiwan and Suleiman also established AWI Company, also known as AWI Group, an affiliate of United Group (UG) based in Dubai Media City. AWI Company published a number of technical and advertising newspapers and magazines in 35 cities in 12 countries. The group publications included Layalina, Top Gear, Marie Claire, Fortune, and Concord Media for Road Advertisements. The group planned for an IPO in 2012 but stopped due to Syrian civil war.

In 1992, he founded Al-Waseet, a classified advertising newspaper in Kuwait, with local business partners. Al-Waseet grew from a classified advertising weekly publication in Kuwait to having operations in Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Lebanon and Egypt, as well as editions of it under the name of Al Wasila in Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Muhammad Bashar Kiwan (Arabic: محمد بشار كيوان; born November 30, 1966), known as Bachar Kiwan, is a Syrian-French convicted felon, fraudster and international fugitive. He is sought by the authorities in the Comoros Islands for criminal convictions relating to money laundering, fraud, and embezzlement in connection with the Comoros passport sales scandal and in Kuwait for criminal convictions relating to various white collar crimes including criminal fraud, forgery and bribery. He is a former businessman, having founded and invested in companies in the media and advertising industry operating in the Arab world, including Al-Waseet International Company. He previously held the positions of chairman of the Syrian Business Council in Kuwait, Honorary Consul of Comoros for Kuwait, and was a member of the Syrian-Iranian Business Council.

Muhammad Bashar Kiwan was born in 1966 to Syrian parents and grew up in Kuwait. He received a master's degree in economics from the University of Montpellier in France and speaks fluent Arabic, French and English.