US $50 million fraud case being investigated by British law firm |15 May 2018

The inquiry into the disappearance of US $50 million belonging to the government is still ongoing with the case now being investigated by a legal firm in Britain.

Anti-Corruption Commission of Seychelles (ACCS) chief executive May De Silva gave this information on the sidelines of a meeting of heads of key institutions with President Danny Faure yesterday morning at State House.

“They are processing all the paper work we have collated and sent to them so they can build a case on the missing funds,” she said.

Ms De Silva noted that no deadline or timeline has been set as to when the case will be completed as there is a lot of information to go through.

“As soon as they give us a bit more information with regard to when they expect to take this case to the next step as they are gathering evidence, we will inform the authorities on where we are with the case,” she added.

For security reasons she did not reveal the identity of the law firm.

According to reports, the US $50 million was a gift to Seychelles from the United Arab Emirates in 2002 to purchase food for the country by the then Seychelles Marketing Board (SMB). The money was apparently transferred from the Central Bank of Seychelles to an account in the Bank of Baroda in Britain. Since then, there is no trace as to where the money has gone.

On the issue of credibility of the ACCS with regard to one of its employees being charged in a corruption case, Ms De Silva said the ACCS does not tolerate corruption anywhere in any institution in Seychelles which also includes the commission itself.

“For us it’s not about damaging our credibility. If something has gone wrong and if somebody has broken the law then the law will deal with that issue in the proper way,” she added.