BEIRUT: Lebanon’s central bank will seek the repayment of public funds embezzled by at least one former central bank official and by lawyers and commercial bankers, to help guarantee its liquidity, Central Bank Governor Karim Souaid said on Thursday.
Souaid did not name Riad Salameh, the former central bank governor whose 30-year term ended in disgrace amid investigations into whether he embezzled more than $300 million between 2002 and 2015.
Instead Souaid told reporters that the central bank had filed a criminal complaint against an unnamed former official of the central bank, a former banker and a lawyer over alleged illicit enrichment through misuse of public funds.
He said the operations were carried out through four offshore shell companies in the Cayman Islands that he did not name.
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