Cape Town — One of the Seychelles' wealthiest and most powerful men, his wife and former senior government officials face charges of laundering U.S. $50 million as a new government, elected last year, attempts to clean up the nation's reputation as a centre of financial crime.
Mukesh Valabhji and his wife, Laura Alcinder Valabhij, were arrested in November on suspicion of the embezzlement and laundering of money donated to the Seychelles government by the United Arab Emirates in 2002, report Scilla Alecci and Will Fitzgibbon for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
The Seychelles News Agency reports that on Friday the Seychelles Supreme Court set bail at a record figure of $2 million for one of the suspects, a woman whom the agency did not name.
The Valabhjis are reported to have been close to former President Albert René, who ruled from when he seized power in coup in 1977 until 2004, and whose party continued to govern until 2020 when the opposition, the Linyon Demokratik Seselwa (LDS), swept to power in a landslide victory.
When the new president, Wavel Ramkawalan, was sworn in he pledged that the rule of law would be maintained under his leadership, saying "nobody is above the law and the rule of law will remain as one pillar of our democracy." The money-laundering case is being brought to court by the Anti-Corruption Commission of Seychelles (ACCS).
When two of the accused first appeared in court, one alleged to the Seychelles News Agency that "this is a political affair".
The former government officials charged are a former director-general at the Ministry of Finance, a director of an entity set up to manage state-owned hotels and tourism properties and a senior officer of the Seychelles People's Defence Forces.
