Prosecutors say Riad Salameh, the financial institution’s governor from 1993 to 2023, is being investigated for cash laundering and different crimes.
Prosecutors in Germany have confirmed they’re investigating Lebanon’s former central financial institution chief for cash laundering and different crimes and have issued an arrest warrant for him.
Riad Salameh, the governor of Lebanon’s central financial institution from 1993 to 2023, is being investigated collectively together with his brother Raja and different suspects, the Munich public prosecutor’s workplace confirmed on Tuesday, the Reuters information company reported.
Salameh and the opposite suspects are being investigated on fees together with forgery, cash laundering and embezzlement, the prosecutor’s workplace mentioned.
The brothers have denied the costs.
Salameh, 73, can also be being investigated in Lebanon and no less than 5 European international locations for allegedly taking a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from Lebanon’s central financial institution to the detriment of the Lebanese state and laundering the funds overseas.
Munich’s public prosecutor’s workplace mentioned a part of the sum was routed to Europe by way of a letterbox firm within the British Virgin Islands and invested in actual property, together with in Germany.
In an operation with associate authorities from France and Luxembourg, three industrial properties in Munich and Hamburg with a complete worth of about 28 million euros ($30.3m) had been confiscated, the prosecutor’s workplace mentioned.
As well as, shares in a Dusseldorf-based property firm value about 7 million euros ($7.5m) had been secured.
Final 12 months, France issued an arrest warrant for Salameh, and Interpol issued a pink discover for the then-governor.
Alleged crimes
Salameh’s 30-year time period as central financial institution chief came to an end in July.
He started his tenure as governor in 1993, three years after Lebanon’s 15-year civil struggle got here to an finish. It was a time when reconstruction loans and support had been pouring into the nation, and Salameh was extensively celebrated for his function in Lebanon’s restoration.
However he resigned from his put up a needed man in Europe and accused by many in Lebanon of being accountable for the nation’s monetary disaster that started in mid-2019.
Many monetary specialists noticed him as an architect of a home of playing cards that crumbled as Lebanon’s provide of {dollars} dried up and after many years of rampant corruption and mismanagement from Lebanon’s ruling events.
The disaster has pulverised the Lebanese pound and worn out the financial savings of many Lebanese as arduous foreign money ran out on the banks.
For his half, Salameh has repeatedly denied the allegations towards him and insisted that his wealth comes from his earlier job as an funding banker at Merrill Lynch, inherited properties and investments.
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