Lebanon probes Kuwaitis’ Hill real estate fraud against two brothers
‘Lax Customs check cause of drugs spread’
KUWAIT CITY, Feb 10: The Lebanese Public Prosecutor is investigating the real estate fraud against two brothers Imad Sh and Zuhair in what is known in the media as the ‘Kuwaitis’ Hill’, reports Al-Rai daily.
According to informed sources, Zuhair took full responsibility for the charges against the company owned by the brothers and confessed that he owed about 800,000 dollars to Kuwaiti investors, while denying responsibility for the rest of the charges.
The brothers, according to the sources, seemed indifferent during the investigations and were not aware of the legal consequences, and asked for a 20 days period to submit documents to prove the company’s contractual obligations.
The sources said a delegation representing the investors met with officials of the Kuwaiti Fund for Arab Social Development to explain the situation of their investments in Baalbek and the lack of infrastructure in the city.
Earlier it was reported at least 10 Kuwaiti investors were swindled by a real estate and contracting company owned by two Lebanese brothers who had been living in Kuwait until recently.
The victims said the two Lebanese brothers did not abide to the terms of contracts, that is to say they did not start the projects of housing units which remained just ink on papers, nor had registered the lands in the name of the investors, but instead they sold them to repay their own debts because these pieces of lands were registered in their names.
According to the Lebanese law, foreigners are allowed to possess a certain proportion of land, so the victims had no alternative but to register the land they had bought and paid for it in full in the names of the two Lebanese brothers.
‘Lax Customs’: Only eight days after a cautious circular about parcels from six countries was issued, a seven kilos package containing Captagon pills was sent from one of the countries and it was passed through the Customs without being searched, reports Al-Qabas daily.
The incident prompted Customs officials to issue directives to tighten inspection of packages coming from Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, China, Iran and Thailand.
According to the daily, the low level of inspection of the air cargo allowed the entry of banned goods into the country, which was later seized in cooperation with personnel from the General Department of Drugs Control, Research and Investigation.
The sources said the Captagon shipment was seized which came packed inside candy boxes in the name of a company. The packets were not inspected and were tightly sealed.
On a related note, the Minister of Finance Dr Nayef Al-Hajraf said he intended to take measures “parallel to the size of the imbalances in the Customs. He held a meeting with a number of senior Customs officers and conducted intensive meetings in this regard.
The minister’s moves come in light of what the daily had revealed last Sunday about security warnings concerning Customs laxity and the involvement of employees in a number of cases. Company ‘sealed’: The Ministry of Commerce and Industry has recently issued a decision to prevent a company and two of its employees from conducting any activity after the suspects were found guilty of money laundering and financing terrorism, reports Al-Rai daily quoting reliable sources.
The same sources said the Undersecretary of the Ministry, Abdullah Al-Afasi in the first article of the decree said a company dealing in jewellery, precious stones and metals has been barred from conducting any similar business and the same article covers the two employees.
The decision stated that the suspension of the activity includes the suspension of the license issued to any of them, their representatives or their dependents, by origin or participation, until the removal of the causes of the irregularities against them in respect of the provisions of the Companies Law No. 1 of 2016, Law No. 106 of 2013 and its executive regulations, pending a final court verdict, if any.