How did $330 million stolen in Lebanon end up in Swiss banks? This is the incredible story told this Sunday by the Sunday newspaper. On Thursday, the director of the Banque du Liban, Riad Salameh, as well as his brother Raja Salameh and his assistant Marianne Hoayek were charged in Beirut. Money laundering, embezzlement of public funds, tax evasion, falsification of documents: the suspicions are heavy. The two brothers are said to have embezzled between 300 and 500 million US dollars and stolen the central bank of Lebanon, of which Riad Salameh has held the reins since 1993.
Prior to the indictment, parallel investigations were carried out in several countries of the European Union and in Switzerland. Result: 330 million dollars would have been transferred by the Salameh brothers to Swiss accounts, reveals the German-speaking title. The transactions would have been possible thanks to an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands, named Forry Associates and created in 2001. “Considerable sums” would then have transited to buy real estate in several European countries.
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HSBC, UBS, Credit Suisse…
In Switzerland, the personal account of Raja Salameh with the HSBC subsidiary in Geneva would have been fed to the tune of 250 million dollars. UBS, Credit Suisse, Julius Baer, EFG and Pictet also received sums.
The director of the Banque du Liban benefits from the presumption of innocence. He denies all charges once morest him. For its part, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma) is also conducting preliminary investigations once morest twelve Swiss banks, the German-speaking Sunday newspaper still indicates. To which a spokesperson confirmed that an “enforcement procedure” has been initiated once morest two financial institutions in the “Lebanese context”.
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