Saudi Arabia Uncovers Massive Fraud worth SR11.5 Billion

Law enforcement authorities in Saudi Arabia arrested at least 32 suspects including businessmen, bank officials, and citizens. A huge corruption scheme was uncovered worth 11.5 billion riyals.

The Anti-Corruption Authority (Nazaha) investigated the suspected corporation with the Central Bank of Saudi Arabia to discover that some banks’ employees were in cahoot with the organized crime group in the country. The criminal group consists of the citizens and businessmen who deposited small sums of cash from different sources and then transferred the cash out of the country. 

The two authorities examined the bank accounts and discovered that 11.5 billion riyals were taken out of the country. The authorities arrested 7 business officials and 12 employees of the bank and some non-commissioned officers involved in the scandal. Five Saudi nationals and 2 expats have been arrested as well under the charge of the bribery, illicit financial gains, money laundering, and commercial fraud. 

One of the businessmen arrested was involved in setting up a number of fake companies under his name or his family members’ names. He was responsible for opening up several bank accounts. The accounts were used to deposit cash in small sums from hidden sources and then transfer the funds overseas. The bank employees purposely neglected the operations in exchange for money and gifts.

The businessmen also paid up to 300,000 riyals to a police officer in exchange for stalling the case of suspicious financial dealings. Four million were paid to the mediators to stall the case of suspicious financial dealing with the public prosecution. Some other businessmen opened up shell companies to deposit their illicit funds in the bank. The bank officials opened the bank accounts of these shell companies enabling the money laundering operations.