Maldives Opposition links President Yameen to MVR 30 billion financial scandal

Maldives largest opposition party, MDP's Chairperson Ali Waheed has linked President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom to a financial scandal worth over MVR 30 billion.

Speaking on RaajjeTV's FalaSurukhee program Ali Waheed said that the opposition along with international investigators were conducting a probe in to the alleged corrupt activities of the first family.

Ali Waheed said that the party had documentary evidence of President Yameen embezzling MVR 30 billion from state coffers. Ali Waheed claimed that this amount was from the corruption of MMPRC as well as through money laundering schemes run by President Yameen.

The corruption of MMPRC valued at MVR 1.2 billion by the Auditor General implicates several businesses with connections to President Yameen's former confidante and Vice President Ahmed Adeeb. SOF private limited, one of several companies to which money from MMPRC was illicitly transferred issued a statement saying that the companies bank accounts were used by President Yameen and PPM government officials as a front to launder MMPRC money to personal bank accounts. According SOF, "a lot of the money" from the MMPRC loot ended up in personal bank accounts of President Yameen and First Lady Madam Fathmath Ibrahim.

MDP has also alleged on several occasions that the Maldives' central bank MMA, was being used by President Yameen to launder money.

Earlier this week a document leaked from a Singapore based company Idea-V revealed that the company had been in talks with the former VP Adeeb to bring in USD 1.5 billion in cash in to the country.

The cash was being brought in to the Maldives as "an investment" and Idea-V had set several conditions regarding the "investment," including services to count the cash at the airport and secure transport from Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) and storage facilities from the central bank, MMA.

The opposition raised several questions regarding this "investment" noting that it was highly irregular for foreign investment capital to be transferred outside regular banking instruments directly in to a country.

Ali Waheed said that the USD 1.5 billion money laundering scheme was one of several undertaken under the direct oversight of President Yameen.

Ali Waheed said that MDP had also received information about a USD 150 million money laundering scheme that is not directly linked to President Yameen.

Noting that Yameen had bribed international investigators to stop the investigation in to a USD 800 million oil scandal, before his presidency Ali Waheed said that this brought the total of the financial scandal linked to President Yameen to about MVR 45.4 billion. 
source- https://raajje.mv/58423