Lebanon arrests brother of embattled central bank chief

BEIRUT — Lebanese authorities on Thursday arrested the brother of the nation’s embattled central financial institution governor over suspicion of cash laundering and illicit enrichment, the state-run information company reported.

In keeping with the report by the Nationwide Information Company, Ghada Aoun, an investigative choose at Mount Lebanon district courtroom, questioned Raja Salameh for a number of hours earlier than putting him underneath arrest. The go well with towards Salameh was filed by a gaggle of legal professionals who accuse him of corruption.

The transfer comes two months after the identical choose imposed a journey ban and froze some belongings of the central financial institution governor, Riad Salameh, 71, who’s accused of corruption and dereliction of duties throughout Lebanon’s unprecedented financial meltdown.

The central financial institution governor can be being investigated in a number of European nations, together with Switzerland and France, for potential cash laundering and embezzlement

Riad Salameh had steered Lebanese funds for practically three a long time, by post-war restoration and bouts of unrest. As soon as praised because the guardian of Lebanon’s monetary stability, he has drawn rising scrutiny because the small nation’s financial meltdown started in late 2019.

Native media have reported in current months that the governor, his brother and an aide transferred cash overseas regardless of capital controls imposed at residence, a cost the governor has denied.

The choose didn’t reply to calls by The Related Press looking for remark. A neighborhood station, Al-Jadeed TV, has quoted Aoun as saying that Riad Salameh had used his brother to purchase real-estate in France value practically $12 million.

There have been additionally experiences {that a} brokerage agency, Forry Associates Ltd, owned by Raja Salameh, was employed to deal with authorities bonds gross sales by the central financial institution through which the agency acquired $330 million in commissions. The governor mentioned final November that “not a single penny of public cash” was used to pay for Forry Associates Ltd.

Additionally Thursday, Choose Aoun froze the belongings of native lender Creditbank, her newest such transfer towards native banks. On Monday, she froze the belongings of 5 of Lebanon’s largest banks and people of their board of administrators as she investigates potential transfers of billions of {dollars} aboard.

Lebanese banks have imposed casual capital controls because the financial disaster started. Since then, individuals should not have full entry to their financial savings and people who withdraw money from U.S. greenback accounts get an change price far decrease than that on the black market.