Lebanon’s central bank tracks down fraudsters

In October 2021, the Pandora papers (an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) fuelled by the leakage of 11.9 million financial documents), revealed that the governor of the BDL owned offshore companies (Amanior founded in 2007 and of which he is the director, Toscana created in 2013 held by his son) in tax havens with the help of the firm Trident Trust. He was already listed in the Panama Papers in 2016 for his shares in the brokerage firm Forry Associates Limited set up by his brother Raja.

In parallel, since March 2020, several Lebanese political parties point to him as responsible for the bankruptcy of the state and the inexorable fall of the Lebanese pound (see below). They believe that the governor has set up a Ponzi scheme (remuneration of the oldest customers by the money of the new ones), because of his policy of regularly resorting to debt in order to pay back the interest on late payments already accumulated. 

Adulated in the 1990s and 2000s for his policy of parity between the Lebanese pound and the US dollar offering a golden age to the Lebanese until 2011 and the beginning of the war in Syria, Riad Salamé is under attack from all sides and continues to deny all these accusations.

Since March 2020, Lebanon has been in default and facing serious economic, political and, by extension, social problems. The state has to manage a financial debt of €68 billion and the Lebanese pound has lost 95% of its…