Fraud, forgery and embezzlement trial

TDT | Manama

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More than 1,000 investors and clients have been named as victims in one of Bahrain’s largest criminal fraud cases, with prosecutors alleging that the owner of a financial investment firm used their money to pay his own debts and personal obligations.

During a hearing held yesterday, the Chief of Public Financial Crimes and Money Laundering Prosecution told the court that the first defendant, the company owner, carried out 336 fictitious transactions on his own.

Sham deals

He added that the remaining defendants joined him in two further sham deals, taking the total number of alleged fake transactions to 338, and asked the court to impose the toughest penalties available.

The court heard that the four defendants, the owner, the chief executive and two members of the board of directors, face charges of fraud, forgery and embezzlement.

They are also accused of seizing more than BD6 million from investors’ funds and laundering the proceeds of those offences.

In his detailed oral submission, the Chief Prosecutor used an electronic presentation to show documents and visual material.

According to his account, the owner received investors’ money and used it to pay off his own debts and personal liabilities.

The other defendants, he said, helped complete the last two transactions despite knowing that organised misappropriation had already taken place through the previous 336 fictitious deals.

Prosecutors had sent the case to court in September, after an investigation that began following a report from the National Financial Intelligence Centre at the Interior Ministry.

The report raised suspicions that the owner had defrauded investors and taken their money using forged documents, then tried to launder the proceeds to disguise their unlawful source.

The inquiry also found that the chief executive and the two board members took part in carrying out the first defendant’s plan, through steps and arrangements linked to their direct roles in the company.