ACC investigates possibility funds from 3 government projects diverted to Yameen’s accounts

Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) says it has uncovered evidence which points to the possibility funds from three government projects were diverted to former President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom’s bank accounts.

Members of ACC was summoned for questioning by the Public Finance Committee of the Parliament regarding the special audits run on MMPRC this Tuesday.

In response to questions, President of ACC, Muawiz Rasheed said the commission’s investigators, during their review of transactions by SOF Private Limited – the company which laundered funds embezzled from MPPRC – found evidence USD 1 million was transferred by SOF to one of Yameen’s bank accounts.

Muawiz said the commission attempted to review details of all of Yameen’s bank accounts based on the discovery, but had faced challenges in obtaining the details while Yameen had been in power.

 He said the commission later obtained al bank account details and discovered several suspicious transactions.

Some of the suspicious transactions included large amounts of cash deposits to the accounts, as well as transactions with offshore accounts.

“At a later stage, we received the account details and discovered additional findings. We investigated multiple documents and multiple bank statements during this review and notice a large volume of cash deposits to President Yameen’s accounts, as well as transactions huge money transactions with a large number of offshore accounts – something which we are facing difficulty obtaining details of. We also discovered the existence of funds linked with three government projects – which we are investigating as a separate case,” said Muawiz.

Muawiz declined to disclose details regarding the funds from the three government projects as it is an ongoing investigation.

He said he will disclose the specific projects from which funds were diverted to, to the members of the committee in writing at a later date.

Muawiz added that the ACC forwarded cases against 158 parties for criminal charges in connection with the MMPRC embezzlement case.

He said that it wasn’t clear if the Prosecutor General’s Office filed charges against any of the 158 parties at court.

Muawiz said the ACC’s investigators discovered many of the protocols for lease of islands by MMPRC were perverted by government officials. He said that several islands were leased to private parties before the President’s Office issued permits, and found total 67 islands were leased unlawfully.