Maafannu Medhu MP Ibrahim Rasheed (Bonde) told the criminal court today that he found out about corruption in the lease of Raa Fuggiri when it emerged that the payment for the island was deposited to a private company.
Bonde said he learned of acts of corruption committed by former vice president Ahmed Adeeb when he saw a bank statement showing lease acquisition costs paid to the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) deposited to a private company called SOF.
Former president Abdulla Yameen is on trial along with businessman Ahmed 'Krik' Riza and the Sun Investment and Sun Construction and Engineering companies over the Fuggiri lease, which was part of the MMPRC corruption scandal.
Yameen was charged with money laundering and accepting a bribe. Riza was charged with money laundering and acting as an intermediary to bribery. Both Sun companies were charged with money laundering.
In his testimony, Bonde said he was not in parliament at the time and had been working in tourism and tour operating businesses after setting up a company called IBR. He said he was involved in the Fuggiri transactions on behalf of Dubai's Classic Citi Island Holding.
"When the Dubai company arranged funds for the IBR company, I paid USD 150,000 as the first payment," Bonde said.
When he sought documents from the bank, Bonde said he discovered that the funds had been deposited to an SOF account instead of the MMPRC. As wrongdoing was suspected, Bonde said he filed cases with the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and the Auditor General's Office.
Qasim Abdul Kareem, the manager of the Faafu Nilandhoo Bank of Maldives branch, was jailed for leaking the bank statement, Bonde noted. But after investigations were launched into the complaints he filed, Bonde said he suspected there were disagreements between Adeeb and other senior government officials.
"It was done through the ministry. That was Adeeb's company. Then when the investigation started, I saw that there were problems at the time between Adeeb and other senior government officials," Bonde said.
Fuggiri case
According to the prosecution, Yameen used his influence as president to collect USD 1,117,000 as a bribe through Riza and laundered the money through Sun Investment and Sun Construction and Engineering.
Fuggiri was leased through the MMPRC without a bidding process to the Dubai-based Classic Citi Island Holding for USD 1.55 million. While bribery was suspected in the leasing of Fuggiri, the Pandora Papers revealed that influential Indian businessmen were behind the deal.
On May 26, 2016, USD 1.1 million was transferred from an account opened under Riza's name at the Bank of Ceylon to Sun Construction. The money was deposited as an "in-house transfer" on June 7, 2016 to an account opened by Sun Investment at the Bank of India.
On the same day, the money was deposited with an additional USD 800 to an account opened under Yameen's name at the Islamic Bank.
Yameen, Krik Riza and the Sun companies say that the transactions were unrelated to the Fuggiri lease, claiming it was a currency exchange transaction with a Sun company to convert US dollars. Defence witnesses were submitted to prove the claim.
