A recent massive leak from one of the world’s leading private banks, Credit Suisse, has exposed the huge wealth of clients involved in breaches of human rights such as torture, drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption, and murderer.
The leak involved 30,000 Credit Suisse clients from around the world, unmasking many beneficiaries of more than 100 billion Swiss Francs held in one of Switzerland’s leading private banks.
The data features a human trafficker, a stock exchange boss, a billionaire who had ordered the murder of his Lebanese pop star girlfriend, Suzanne Tamim, and executives who looted the Venezuelan state oil company and corrupt politicians.
The data also showed that a Vatican-owned account used to spend €350m in a fraud investment in a London property.
Credit Suisse denied the allegations and “strongly rejects the allegations and inferences about the bank’s purported business practices”.
The Middle East has taken a major toll in the leak, with Egypt hosting more than 2000 accounts, and many regional “leaders” were featured in the leak including:
- Alaa and Gamal Mubarak – Sons of Former Egyptian President who was overthrown during the Arab Spring revolution in 2011 – ($188.10m USD by 2010).
- Omar Suleiman – Former Egyptian army general, politician, diplomat, and head of Intelligence. – ($35.44m USD in 2007).
- King Abdullah II of Jordan ($224m USD).
- Khaled Nezzar – Former Defense Minister in Algeria. – ($1.2m USD until 2013).
- Ayad Allawi– Iraq’s former Deputy Prime Minister.
- Abdelaziz Bouteflika – Late Algerian president.
- Hussein Salem – Late Egyptian tycoon.
- Ghaleb Al-Qamish – Yemen’s former domestic intelligence chief.
- Hisham Talaat Moustafa – Egyptian billionnaire businessman and politician in Mubarak’s party, who was convicted in 2009 of ordering the killing of his ex-girlfriend, Lebanese Singer Suzanne Tamim.
Hisham Talaat Moustafa hired a hitman, Mohsen Al-Sukkari, to murder Tamim for refusing to marry him since she was already married to the Iraqi-born British Kickboxing champion, Riyadh Al-Azzawi.
On July 28, 2008, Suzanne Tamim, 31 years old, was found brutally murdered in her Dubai apartment with several stab wounds and a slit throat.
Moustafa, reportedly paid Al-Sukkari, a former police officer, $2 million to carry out the crime. Both were then charged for the murder in May 2009 and sentenced to death by hanging.
However, the convictions were thrown out in 2010 by the Supreme Constitutional Court that ordered a retrial on a ‘legal technicality”, freeing both Moustafa and Al-Sukkari.
The retrial resulted in reduced sentences: Mostafa was sentenced to 15 years and Al-Sukkari to life in prison.
Both criminals did not complete their sentences.
Hisham Mostafa reportedly escaped from prison during the 2011 Egyptian protests, and Al-Sukkari received a presidential pardon along with over 3,000 prisoners and was released in May 2020.
For more on the story, visit: Convicted Murderer Of Lebanese Singer Gets Pardoned in Egypt.
