Lebanese Forces chief smuggled $16 MM prior to banking crisis: Reports

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: News Website
22 Jul 2023 22:06

An anti-corruption activist says a large number of politicians, judges, and journalists have benefited from subsidies before smuggling them to offshore bank accounts prior to the collapse of the banking Ponzi scheme.

Samir Geagea, leader of the Christian Lebanese Forces party, enters a hall to meet with his senior party officials, Lebanon, April 4, 2014 (AP)

During an interview with Al-Jadeed TV, Gina Chammas, president of the Lebanon Certified Anti-Corruption Managers (LCACM), accused Samir Geagea, president of the right-wing "Lebanese Forces" party, of smuggling $16 million to offshore bank accounts shortly before the banking crisis.

In addition to Geagea, who has been a long-standing ally of the US in Lebanon, and the chosen partner of the Washington Institute for prospects of reform in Lebanon, Chammas also accused, without specifying namely, a large number of politicians judges and journalists of benefitting from low-interest loans and smuggling them to offshore bank accounts prior the collapse of the banking sector in late 2019.

The Lebanese pound has lost more than 95% of its value since 2019 when the Banking System's Ponzi scheme was exhausted.

The exchange rate of the Lebanese pound against the dollar gradually declined until it lost more than 95% of its value, and more than half of the population became below the poverty line in light of a high unemployment rate.

Check out: Lebanon’s central bank governor wanted

Central Bank President Riyad Salameh, who has been the central bank governor for 30 years, is largely blamed for Lebanon's catastrophic economic crisis, which the World Bank has labeled one of the worst in recent modern history.

In March 2022, the European Judicial Cooperation Unit EuroJust announced that France, Germany, and Luxembourg had frozen 120 million euros of Lebanese assets following an investigation targeting Salameh and four of his close associates, including his brother Raja Salameh, on charges of money laundering and embezzlement of public funds in Lebanon worth more than 330 million dollars and 5 million euros, respectively, between 2002 and 2021.

Salameh has long maintained his innocence since the case was opened against him in the wake of the Lebanese financial crisis.

Despite the lawsuits, summons, investigations, and travel ban issued against him in Lebanon, Salameh is still in the position he has held since 1993, making him one of the longest-serving central bank governors in the world.