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Lebanon’s veteran former central bank governor was on Tuesday detained in Beirut as part of a long-running probe into corruption allegations, according to a senior judicial source and a person with knowledge of the case.
Riad Salameh, 74, spent three decades in charge of the Banque du Liban before standing down just over a year ago. His final years at the institution were dogged by controversy and allegations that he engaged in financial mismanagement and criminal conduct.
Salameh and his brother Raja Salameh are accused of siphoning off at least $330mn in public funds, laundering those through a maze of international bank accounts and offshore accounts tied to his family and associates.
While Salameh had been previously charged by a Lebanese investigating judge over this scheme, his detention on Tuesday was related to fresh allegations of embezzlement, money laundering and fraud, the sources said. He is expected to remain in pre-trial detention for four days, while investigators continue to question him over the newer allegations.
Salameh has been the focus of years-long judicial investigations in his home country, the US and at least seven European countries probing various allegations of financial crimes tied to the alleged embezzlement of those funds.
France and Germany issued arrest warrants against him in 2023, the same year he was sanctioned by the US, UK and Canada over allegations that he abused the powers of his office “to engage in a variety of unlawful self-enrichment schemes”.
He is widely blamed by the Lebanese public for his role in helping usher in Lebanon’s ruinous economic and financial collapse in 2019, becoming the public face of Lebanon’s downward spiral.
The World Bank called the financial crisis a “deliberate depression orchestrated by the country’s elite that has long captured the state and lived off its economic rents”.
Salameh did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Riad and his brother Raja Salameh have repeatedly denied all wrongdoing, with Salameh saying that his wealth was accrued in his years as an investment banker and subsequent wise investments.
Salameh was summoned on Tuesday as part of the Lebanese judiciary’s sprawling investigation, which has repeatedly stalled amid what critics have described as political interference. He has previously been charged with financial crimes relating to the $330mn scheme in Lebanon, but has so far evaded detention.
He is expected to remain in pre-trial detention while he continues to be interrogated over his and the BdL’s dealings with Optimum Invest, a Lebanese brokerage firm, the sources said.
Lebanon’s state-owned National News Agency said Salameh was detained after he was questioned in connection with “the Optimum file”.
Specifically, investigators allege that the BdL and Optimum worked together to buy and sell treasury bonds and certificates of deposit with quick turnovers to make major profits through commissions between 2015-2018, the sources said. The allegation against Salameh included embezzlement, money-laundering and fraud.
While similar in nature, the Optimum charges are separate to the case of the $330mn allegedly embezzled in public funds through Forry Associates, a company controlled by Salameh’s brother Raja.
Optimum did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement posted to its website, the company said that a financial audit in 2023 had found “no evidence of wrongdoing or illegality” in the company’s dealings with the BdL.
Lebanon is currently governed by a caretaker cabinet with limited powers, which did not appoint a new BdL governor. Instead, Salameh’s former vice-governor has been at the helm of the monetary authority.
Caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati said his government would not intervene in the case. “Justice has said what it had to say, and we respect this decision,” caretaker justice minister Henri Khoury said.
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