A massive leak from Swiss bank Credit Suisse revealed the hidden financial fortune of many high-profile individuals, including the King of Jordan, Abdullah II.
King Abdullah II of Jordan was revealed to have a vast fortune hidden in Swiss accounts after a leak at Credit Suisse, which his administration has called inaccurate, old, and misleading.
The situation comes amid a massive leak of data that included details about thousands of bank accounts at Credit Suisse, a Swiss bank, between the 1940s and 2010s. The information was published by several media outlets on Sunday.
King of Jordan's Vast Fortune
The data leak suggests that the Jordanian monarch owned at least six different accounts each with tens of millions of Swiss francs. In a statement, the palace said that the recent reports were being used to smear His Majesty and Jordan's reputation and distort the truth.
The palace said that the numbers in the accounts were overblown by counting the amount of money in them multiple times. The statement added that the bulk of the funds inside the accounts was the replacement of planes that the king inherited from his father, the late King Hussein.
Officials cited a $212 million sale of an Airbus A340 plane that the administration replaced with a much smaller and cheaper Gulfstream jet that the monarch was currently using. Furthermore, authorities said that the savings were used with the monarch's personal wealth to cover royal family costs, such as royal initiatives across the country in the last few years that aim to help the underprivileged, as per Reuters.
The lawyers for King Abdullah II and Queen Rania said that their clients have abided by every relevant tax law. They argued there had been no wrongdoing done by the couple because the majority of the money in the accounts was inherited.
While Jordan's economy was strong compared to other regions in the Middle East, it has also been a victim of the coronavirus pandemic. Authorities reported that the region's economy contracted by 1.6% during 2020 based on data from the World Bank. Meanwhile, the region's king has been the recipient of corruption allegations in recent years.
The Times of Israel reported that the reveal of the Panama Papers suggests that King Abdullah II purchased 14 luxury homes that had an overall estimated value of $106 million in both the United States and the United Kingdom. The sales were conducted between 2003 and 2017 through front companies.
Massive Swiss Accounts Leak
Other high-profile individuals included in the list of compromised accounts include the sons of Hosni Mubarak, the ousted president of Egypt, and business tycoons who benefited from his rule that lasted for three decades. Spy chiefs from Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen who cooperated with the United States are among others who have been accused of human rights abuses.
For a long time, citizens across the Middle East have not had any idea about the finances of their countries' elites. The only indication they have of their fortune is what they could glean from peering over palace walls.
The executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative, Nadim Houry, said that what we had was a very sophisticated, corrupt elite that had been integrated into the global financial system. He argued that enabling the politically connected to make themselves richer was a failure of many states, the New York Times reported.
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