Abbas claims that his wealth comes from his own businesses. However Mohammed Rachid, a former economic advisor to Yasser Arafat, has accused Abbas' father of taking $100 million from the Palestinian government for himself. In the late 1980s to early 1990s, Abbas lived in
Montreal, Canada, where he had a company which was mainly involved in renovating apartment buildings, and was able to obtain Canadian citizenship. However, FEMC's success didn't come without the assistance from the U.S. government: The company had been rewarded a contract for $1.89 million from the U.S. government during the Iraq war to build a sewage system in the town of
Hebron. As well as his tobacco business, Abbas is the head of an insurance company, a civil engineering firm and a real-estate business, all of which are headquartered in Ramallah, effectively the capital of the
West Bank. In August 2015, he was reported to be "tied to a corruption scandal" involving the misuse of public funds, and had paid $50,000 to acquire apartments in a luxury complex in Ramallah, for which Bahrain's foreign minister had been asked for $4 million to fund the private complex for Palestinian officials. ==Personal life==