A damaged picture of Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad is seen on a wall in Idlib city, after rebel fighters took control of the area on March 28, 2015. The text on the poster reads in Arabic "With Bashar." Ammar Abdallah/Reuters BEIRUT – Regime forces have reportedly conducted raids in Damascus in search of dollars amid the worsening currency crisis in the country that has seen the Syrian pound plummet in value.

Members of Syria’s Customs and the General Intelligence’s 40 Branch conducted surprise raids in the past 72 hours in all of Damascus’ commercial markets, All4Syria news reported Thursday.

“Local merchants said that the security services were searching for hard [foreign] currency that could be in the possession of the shop owners,” an activist told the pro-opposition news outlet.

He added that the regime police “could arrest and confiscate the property” of merchants possessing foreign currency.

The report explained further that a security squad on Tuesday had stormed residents’ houses in central Damascus’ Midan and Old Zahraa quarters, confiscating ID cards from all the members of families living in the area including the women, amid a state of security mobilization on the streets of Damascus.

“Residents in Damascus’ neighborhoods have noticed disquieting activity by security patrols and movable military checkpoints over the last few days. This activity has developed into organized raids on houses and commercial enterprises.”

In recent years Syria’s beleaguered war time has become increasingly “dollarized” as residents in pro-regime increasingly desire the US currency, while the use of the Syrian pound has decreased in rebel-held zones in the north.

The Syrian regime’s Al-Baath newspaper in late March warned against the trend toward the dollar, calling for the exchange rate to be controlled.

Currency crisis

The reported raids come as the Syrian pound—which sold at approximately 50 to the dollar prior to the war — has slumped dramatically in recent weeks, despite the Central Banks effort’s to stabilize its value.

In early February, Syrian currency sold at approximately 230 pounds to the dollar — an already dramatic decline from its September 2014 value of 180 pounds to the dollar. The weakening of the currency has only picked up pace since.

Syrian currency on April 13 slid down to a low of 280 pounds to the dollar, according to a report by Eqtsad Net, an outlet covering the country’s economy.

A woman shows U.S. dollars and Syrian pounds in Amman, Jordan on December 12, 2011 Ali Jarekji/Reuters “This was the highest price the US dollar has registered against the Syrian pound since 21 months ago,” the report added, in reference to the pound’s record low exchange rate in August 2013 when the US had threatened to conduct punitive airstrikes against the Syrian regime.

“This comes despite the fact that the Syria Stocks website has stopped monitoring the price of the US dollar, after it was subjected to successive accusations by the regime and its supporters of being responsible for increasing the price of the US dollar.”

Three days later, pro-opposition Siraj Press reported that “amid instability in the exchange rate” the value of the dollar had risen to 282 Syrian pounds for purchase and 285 for sale on the black market in Damascus.

The Syrian Central Bank has scrambled to arrest the slide in the pound’s value with regular interventions to sell foreign currency, but its efforts have been in vain amid reports the institution has run out of currency reserves.

All4Syria said in that “third-party observers believe the Central Bank is bankrupt and incapable of direct interventions in the market.”

The report added that the Central Bank announces the interventions as a “psychological war” against currency traders aimed to reduce the value of foreign currency, but that in practice the institution cannot increase the supply of dollars in the market.