Bahrain High Court of Appeal upholds ruling against Future Bank and officials, Central Bank of Iran and other Iranian banks

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

The Bahrain High Court of Appeal upholds the ruling issued in the largest money laundering case in the history of the Kingdom of Bahrain, convicting Future Bank (FB), six of its officials, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) and other Iranian banks,stated HE Chancellor Wael Boallay, Senior Advocate General and Deputy Attorney General. 

The convicted officials of FB were sentenced to 10-year imprisonment, except for the sixth defendant, who was sentenced to 5 years in prison.

A fine of BD 1 million was imposed against all the convicts, CBI and other banks involved.

In addition, the ruling included the confiscation of the remittance amounts estimated at $148,071,818 (one hundred and forty-eight million and seventy-one thousand eight hundred and eighteen), €967,937,627 (nine hundred and sixty-seven million, nine hundred and thirty-seven thousand six hundred and twenty-seven euros), AED 53,350,000 (fifty-three million three hundred and fifty thousand), and IRR 235,093,250,000 (two hundred and thirty-five billion ninety-three million two hundred and fifty thousand).

The appeal submitted by the sixth convict was rejected by the court after reviewing arguments and pleadings of both parties, as the Public prosecution challenged the appeal and requested heavier fines and imposing penalties of the predicate offence against the convicts as per the provisions of the law.  Accordingly, the court upheld the rendered ruling.

The Public Prosecution had previously announced that its investigations revealed a huge scheme to launder billions of dollars through FB, which was established in the Kingdom of Bahrain and is controlled by two Iranian banks owned by the Islamic Republic of Iran, namely, the National Iranian Bank, Bank Melli Iran (BMI) and Bank Saderat Iran (BSI), in order to pass suspicious financial transactions for the benefit of the said entities, in violation of laws and regulations.

The intensive investigations conducted by the Public Prosecution revealed banking practices that were carried out in violation of the provisions of the law. It also revealed that CBI had issued instructions to FB regarding the use of an alternative, unapproved transfer system to complete banking operations, for the purpose of concealing the source and movement of funds transferred through it and for the benefit of Iranian banks, as well as circumventing international sanctions imposed on Iranian entities in banking transactions for the necessities of combating money laundering and terrorist financing. It took advantage of the operational control of BMI and BSI over FB and directed its policies as well as their subordination at the time to the Iranian government and CBI. In implementation of these instructions, FB officials, in association with other officials of Iranian banks and CBI, carried out operations of sending, transferring and receiving more than one billion three hundred million US dollars using the said alternative system, as part of a huge money-laundering scheme.

HE added that investigations are still ongoing regarding the rest of the facts, which include international transactions carried out by FB and Iranian banks for the same purposes in violation of the Law on Prohibition and Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing, and banking laws and regulations. It is expected that more people involved in the scheme will be revealed in preparation for referring these cases to criminal trial.