Photographer: OZAN KOSE / AFP via Getty Images
Photographer: OZAN KOSE / AFP via Getty Images
Saudi authorities said they had arrested seven businessmen and 12 bank employees for a plan that involved the transfer of 11.6 billion rials ($ 3.1 billion) of unknown origin abroad.
A statement from the kingdom’s anti-corruption authority released by the official Saudi news agency said officials had thwarted a “gang” of foreign residents, bank employees and businessmen working together “to deposit cash amounts from a unknown source and transfer them out of kingdom “. In addition to businessmen and bank employees, authorities arrested a police officer and several foreign nationals and residents.
According to the statement, the arrested men were charged with bribery, forgery, exploitation of their jobs for illegal economic gain, money laundering and other crimes. The statement did not provide their names.
The announcement came on the same day the kingdom held its annual global investment summit, the Future Investment Initiative. The inaugural conference in 2017 was followed by a controversial anti-corruption campaign led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has pledged to root out the graft in the country whatever its source. Saudi dissidents have accused him of using allegations of corruption to undermine potential adversaries and critics, an accusation officials have denied.
READ MORE: Ritz-Carlton Crackdown pursues the Crown Prince’s new Saudi Arabia