Financial Times: A bank in Switzerland is accused of helping the former ruler of Lebanon to embezzle economy

This month, public prosecutors in France filed charges against the British bank HSBC in Switzerland over allegations of its involvement in helping the former governor of the Lebanese Central Bank, Riad Salameh, to embezzle funds. The French judiciary will later issue its decision on whether to refer the case to court or drop the charges, according to what the British newspaper Financial Times reported.

Riad Salama and his brother Raja, who owns Fawry Associates, are under investigation in Lebanon and five European countries on accusations of seizing funds from the Bank of Lebanon and transferring them abroad.

According to the Financial Times, French investigators accuse Salama – who served as governor of the Bank of Lebanon between 1993 and 2023 – of transferring $330 million from the Central Bank to the company “Fawry Associates” between 2002 and 2015.

Investigators also traced 174 financial transactions from Fawry Associates to Raja Salama’s personal account at HSBC Bank during the period between 2009 and 2016, with a total of $204 million, according to what the newspaper reported from informed sources and legal documents.

The British newspaper added that Salameh repeatedly said that he had no connection to the “Fawry Associates” company owned by his brother, but Lebanese and European investigators said that the role of this company was pivotal in a plan to embezzle public funds from the Bank of Lebanon.

Switzerland’s position

The newspaper pointed out that the Swiss Financial Supervision Authority had previously concluded that the HSBC branch in Switzerland clearly violated anti-money laundering requirements in its dealings with clients from Lebanon.

The authority, in its decision issued in 2024, also criticized the bank for its delay in reporting its suspicions regarding the nature of the transactions of Riad Salama and his brother.

The Swiss authority said in its report that the bank “failed to recognize the indicators of money laundering revealed by these transactions,” referring to financial transactions linked to the Riad Salama family.

The authority warned the bank that investigations into money laundering could have a significant impact on its activities, which prompted it to stop its dealings with more than a thousand wealthy clients in the Middle East, according to the newspaper.

HSBC Bank opened an account for Fawry Associates, registered in the British Virgin Islands, after its establishment in 2001, and the Mossack Fonseca law firm managed its accounts, and its owner was Raja Salama.

The company signed a contract with the Bank of Lebanon in 2002 so that its owner, Raja Salama, would receive commissions in exchange for his work as a financial intermediary to provide services to the bank, when his brother Riad Salama was governor of the Lebanese Central Bank.

But European investigators, according to what the newspaper reported, did not find any activities for Fawry Associates or any of its clients or employees, and its only activity was receiving money from the Bank of Lebanon.

Files in Lebanon and Europe

Riad Salama faces accusations of embezzling $44 million from Lebanon, and is subject to a criminal investigation in several European countries on charges of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars from the Central Bank.

It is noteworthy that about two-thirds of bank deposits in Lebanon were invested in the state in 2019, according to what the Financial Times reported, and their interests represented about a third of government expenditures annually, and when the state was unable to pay, the Lebanese economy was exposed to a major financial crisis whose repercussions continue to this day.

In December 2025, the Lebanese Council of Ministers approved a draft deposit recovery law that aims to address the financial crisis, which has crippled the Lebanese economy for 6 years.

The legislation, known as the “Financial Gap” Law, aims to distribute the massive losses resulting from the financial collapse in Lebanon in 2019 between the state, the central bank, commercial banks, and depositors, and to allow depositors whose savings were frozen to gradually recover their money.