Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his family are being investigated for the large fortune they amassed during his thirty years in power in the country's largest ever corruption probe.
Mubarak was forced to step down on 11th February after weeks of nationwide demonstrations calling for his removal. The 82-year-old former leader is reported to be under guard in a hospital in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh. Mubarak reportedly began complaining of heart problems shortly after anti-corruption investigators began to interrogate him.
Prosecutors have accused Mubarak, his family and their close associates of amassing billions of dollars during his reign, and have launched a massive corruption investigation to identify, sequester and recover the money.
Egypt's ruling Higher Council of the Armed Forces (HCAF) announced in April that it would be setting up a judicial committee to investigate complaints against Mubarak and his family. An HCAF statement said the committee would pursue all legal measure to sequestrate the family's illegitimately gained properties, movable assets and offshore bank accounts.
Investigators have asked foreign governments to freeze the family's overseas assets and the Swiss government has quickly moved to comply. The Wall Street Journal reported on 3rd May that Switzerland had frozen the funds of Libya's leader Mu'ammar Qadhafi, Tunisia's former president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, and Mubarak. It did not announce the names of the banks holding the money, but did say it had frozen 410 million francs (US$470 million) deposited by Mubarak and his inner circle.
A group of lawyers and jurists in Egypt have formed the Egyptian Legal Group for Redumption of the People's Wealth (ELGRPW), dedicated to searching out Mubarak's gains. They are appealing to whistleblowers and are using their network of professionals worldwide to try to follow the flow of money through shell companies, trusts and offshore bank accounts.
Information is already appearing about the size of Mubarak and his family's wealth. Egypt's new justice minister, Mohammed al-Guindi, was reported in the Global Post as saying that Mubarak's wealth could amount to US$70 billion.
Guinda said that Mubarak accumulated his wealth from gas exports to Israel through a company owned by a friend, as well as through various arms deals.
Mubarak's sons, Alaa, 49, and Gamal, 47, are currently being held for investigation in a high-security prison south of Cairo. Prosecutors have accused the two, but especially Gamal, of using political power to bring about the introduction of new economic policies and financial regulations that allowed them to plunder Egypt's public assets, according to IPS.
The two allegedly made vast sums of money through stock market manipulation and kickbacks from the sale of undervalued state assets. For example, Gamal owned a 50 per cent stake in and Alaa sat on the board of Bullion, a Cyprus-registered securities fund with nearly one billion dollars under its management. Bullion's subsidiaries invested heavily in companies managed by Mubarak's allies, who made huge profits due to favourable government contracts.
Egyptian prosecutors are also putting a case together against Mubarak's wife, Suzanne, 69. It was recently discovered that the former first lady held a secret bank account at the National Bank of Egypt with over US$147 million in donations from European countries intended for the Bibliotheca Alexandria. The library's administers have said they were unaware of the existence of the account. The former first lady was involved in a number of NGOs and charities, and these are now being investigated as being a front for capturing foreign donations.
Mubarak is also being investigated on separate charges which include complicity to murder after he allegedly ordered security forces to kill protesters during demonstrations in January and February. He could face the death penalty if convicted.
Sources: Wall Street Journal, Global Post, IPS
For more information, see the Menas ACCS website, here.
No comments:
Post a Comment