US Treasury sanctions Lebanon businessmen and politician alleging corruption News
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US Treasury sanctions Lebanon businessmen and politician alleging corruption

The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Thursday sanctioned three Lebanese individuals for involvement in corruption in Lebanon. The designated individuals are two businessmen, Jihad al-Arab and Dany Khoury, and a member of parliament, Jamil Sayyed. The individuals named by OFAC were added to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list, which bars US persons from trading with them, as well as preventing them from using US financial institutions.

“The Lebanese people deserve an end to the endemic corruption perpetuated by businessmen and politicians who have driven their country into an unprecedented crisis,” said Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control Andrea M. Gacki. “Now is the time to implement necessary economic reforms and put an end to the corrupt practices eroding Lebanon’s foundations. Treasury will not hesitate to use its tools to address impunity in Lebanon.”

According to a press release published by OFAC in conjunction with the designation, both al-Arab and Khoury were the recipients of public contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars in exchange for kickbacks. Al-Arab received a contract to build a landfill which he used to defraud the Lebanese government. He also skirted safety standards on a bridge contract with the government. Khoury received a contract to operate a landfill and was accused of dumping toxic waste into the Mediterranean Sea.

Sayyed skirted Lebanese banking regulations to transfer more than $120 million overseas. During 2019 anti-government protests implicating Sayyed’s corruption specifically, he called on officials to shoot and kill protestors.

This designation was made under Executive Order 13441. The order, signed August 1, 2007, by then-President Bush, authorizes the Treasury to block assets of individuals responsible for the breakdown of the rule of law, political violence and destabilization in Lebanon. Four other individuals are currently designated on the SDN under Executive Order 13411.