ICYMI: Riad Salameh’s Nefarious Embezzling Activities Detailed In Financial Times

(New York, N.Y.) — On Sunday, the Financial Times reported further details on Riad Salameh, former governor of Lebanon’s central bank, and his years-long money laundering schemes. European and Lebanese judicial investigation documents illustrate how Salameh undertook financial practices “to the detriment of the state,” engaged in fiscal fraud and embezzled public funds. For a decade, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) has warned that Salameh cannot be trusted as a partner in Lebanon and recently applauded the U.S. sanctions announced by the Treasury Department on August 10.  

Despite Lebanon’s economic devolvement on his watch, Salameh found considerable personal financial success. Initial reports from 1993 showed his assets to be valued at $60 million, which has now soared to an estimated $200 million after 30 years – a conservative estimate as the actual number is unknown. Financial investigators noted that Salameh’s dramatic financial success was not feasible “with the money he legitimately possessed before assuming the post of governor.”   

UANI’s CEO Ambassador Mark D. Wallace highlighted these discrepancies, underscoring that Salameh “enriched himself at the expense of the Lebanese people and was instrumental in transforming Lebanon into a sovereign money laundering jurisdiction. The Lebanese economy effectively turned into a Ponzi scheme on his watch.”  

Earlier this month, the U.S. coordinated sanctions with its counterparts, the U.K. and Canada, freezing all assets connected to Salameh. The U.S. also sanctioned Salameh’s brother, son Nady, brother Raja, work associate Marianne Hoayek, and former partner Anna Kosakova.  

UANI applauded these efforts but emphasized that “The U.S. and its partners cannot ignore that Hezbollah receives hundreds of millions of dollars annually to carry out terror activities on behalf of the Iranian regime. Stronger and more decisive action is necessary to cut off Hezbollah’s economic lifelines and end the corruption and criminal activity that has engulfed Lebanon and which breeds precisely the environment required by groups like Hezbollah to grow their influence.”  

UANI also calls for the designation of Lebanon, as the U.S. Treasury has already done with Iran, as a jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern under Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act. 

To read UANI’s full statement on the U.S. sanctions on Riad Salameh, please click here. 

To read UANI’s resource Lebanon Banking Campaign – Hizballah, Lebanon & Iran: Partners in a Sovereign Money Laundering Scheme, please click here.

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