Seven Expats Accused Of Laundering, Financing Terrorist In Iraq And Syria

According to the Public Prosecutor, three Jordanians, two Iranians, and two Egyptians formed an organized criminal group in the State Security Service Department between 7/1/2019 and 10/10/2021 and spent 60,334,284.500 dinars on money laundering activities, harming the nation's interests and violating laws, having knowledge that the first and second defendants were agents of the FBI, on the instructions of defendant number seven, collected Kuwaiti dinars in cash from others through an exchange institution which handled all its administrative and financial affairs, and handed it over to defendants three and four with instructions to deposit the funds in the accounts of a commercial company, a fictitious company trading in imports and exports, and a commission agent, and then transfer it to an exchange company with the assistance of the fifth defendant.

One local Arabic newspaper reports that the sixth defendant used his position within a money-exchange company to complete the remittances, concealing and disguising their source, true nature, source, ownership and related rights, using money from an illegal source.

By creating a huge illegal financial system outside the scope of state supervision, the six defendants, who live in Kuwait, have harmed the country's national interests. The system is similar to that of the legitimate system, and through which money transfers were made to third parties, causing difficulties in identifying the parties responsible and who was the beneficiary, making it next to impossible to detect money laundering and terrorist financing operations, exposing the state to economic risks and damaging its credit ranking, as evident from the investigations.

According to the Public Prosecution, the sixth defendant forged bank documents in order to conceal the truth. The forger also committed forgery in documents with the intention of presenting them as identical to the invoices for imports of goods from abroad attributable to the companies named in the papers in order to create the illusion that they are the same.

The third and fourth defendants were in agreement and assisted in the crimes of forgery of the documents by agreeing with them to forge the documents and by providing them with company information, thus enabling them to commit the crimes.

As the manager of an exchange company, he deliberately violated international transfer laws by conducting transactions on behalf of the company through an exchange company, thereby avoiding identification and verification of the actual beneficiary and customer.

As for the first and second defendants, they intentionally violated the measures by transferring money abroad illegally while they held management positions in a banking institution.

As for the seventh defendant, he colluded with those from the first to the sixth defendants, giving them directions and instructing them on how to collect and transfer funds outside the country, which was adverse to the interests of the country.

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