While many bases of the corrupt Fourth Division, formerly run by toppled president Bashar al-Assad's feared younger brother Maher al-Assad, now lie looted, some of the surviving documents have tales to tell.
Those files left strewn behind reveal how the man they called "The Master" preyed on a land where the UN says more than 90 percent of the population was living on a little more than $2 a day.
Piles of documents seen in a two-month-long investigation by AFP expose the vast economic empire of Maher and his network of profiteers.