A company owned by Saudi royal Prince AlWaleedbin Talal has sold large amounts of Dell computer equipment  to the Syrian government, Ron Nixon of The New York Time reports. The transactions, detailed in documents obtained by The Times, are odd primarily because Saudi Arabia has been arming rebels seeking to topple Assad.

In 2011 the Saudis bought $33.4 billion worth of weapons from the U.S. and sent a portion Syrian Rebels. Also, late last year the Kingdom financed a large purchase of infantry weapons from Croatia for the opposition.

Prince Alwaleed owns BDL Gulf, which is an authorized dealer for Dell in the Middle East and Africa.

The sales included hundreds of laptops, tablets, and desktop computers as well as equipment used to censor Internet activity and track activists.

The move appears to violate strict trade sanctions intended to ban the selling of technology to the regime of Syrian president Bashar al Assad.

Alwaleed is the world's 26th-richest person, according to Forbes. He is best known for saying Forbes underestimated his net worth, which he places at more than $29 billion. NYT's Nixon notes that the Syrian company made it clear to BDL that it was buying the equipment on behalf of the Assad government.