BERLIN: German prosecutors said Thursday they had seized assets worth around 35 million euros ($42 million) as part of a money-laundering probe targeting Lebanon’s former central bank governor Riad Salameh and four other people.
Salameh headed Lebanon’s central bank between 1993 and 2023 and has faced numerous accusations including embezzlement, money laundering and tax evasion in separate probes in Lebanon and abroad.
He has denied any wrongdoing.
Prosecutors in Munich said in a statement that “high-value commercial properties in Munich and Hamburg, as well as shares in a real estate company in Duesseldorf” had been seized as part of their investigation.
They allege that Salameh, acting with his brother Raja, “embezzled funds totalling more than $330 million to the detriment of the Lebanese central bank and thereby at the expense of the Lebanese state, in order to illegally enrich himself” between 2004 and 2015.
