Depositors storm banks as economic crisis deepens

BEIRUT — Lebanese depositors, including one armed with a hunting rifle, broke into at least five banks to demand their trapped savings, a sign of growing chaos in the small Mediterranean nation amid a historic economic meltdown.

Friday’s raids were the most in a single day, and raised the possibility that more desperate depositors would try to extract their money by force. The break-ins reflect public anger at the banks’ strict informal controls on cash withdrawals, a byproduct of the financial crisis.

The depositors who have taken matters into their own hands have enjoyed widespread public sympathy, and have been treated with relative leniency by law enforcement. But a groundswell of bank raids could further destabilize Lebanon and its crumbling institutions, as the economic crisis drags on with no end in sight.

Since the meltdown began three years ago, depositors with U.S. dollars have mostly been able to withdraw money in

Lebanese pounds at a much lower rate than the real value. The losses are one of the factors that have pushed nearly three quarters of Lebanese into poverty and driven up crime. Some desperate depositors have resorted to force.

In Beirut, a man with a hunting rifle stormed the branch of LGB Bank and demanded his deposits. The man was identified as Jawad Sleem, a former contractor and a father of seven, who has been jobless for months.

Sleem surrendered to security forces on Friday evening, after he was promised $15,000 in cash and $35,000 in checks that he can deposit in another bank and withdraw, at a lower than official exchange rate.

In a southern Beirut suburb, Mohammed al-Moussawi told the local Al-Jadeed TV that he stormed a branch of Banque Libano-Francaise and got $20,000 of his money. He added that he used a toy pistol to threaten bank employees who gave him his money, adding that he is ready to surrender to authorities.

A protest group that calls itself Depositors’ Outcry told a news conference on Thursday that there would be more breakins. “This is a battle to liberate deposits,” the group said in a statement.

The political class that has ruled the country since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war has done almost nothing to get Lebanon out of what the World Bank described as one of the world’s worst economic crises.