Salameh, once vaunted as a financial wizard who earned Lebanon its reputation as the "Switzerland of the Middle East" during his 30-year tenure, is suspected of engineering a countrywide Ponzi scheme that caused Lebanon's 2019 financial meltdown and its five-year-long economic crisis.
Salameh is accused of concealing massive embezzlement from the central bank through creative accounting and by offering interest rates of up to 20%, which consistently attracted new capital. In 2019, a run on the banks brought the years-long scheme to an abrupt halt.
Millions of people lost their life savings in the resulting financial crisis and the country's currency depreciated by more than 95%.
Lebanon is now primarily a cash economy as the government has yet to pass a financial recovery plan to revive the insolvent banking sector.
This story is from the September 10, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the September 10, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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