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Sunday, 21 October 2018

Prosecutor General charges three former Tri-Ocean Energy execs with allegedly embezzling “USD 1 bn”

** #8 Prosecutor General charges three former execs of the company once known as Tri-Ocean Energy with embezzling “USD 1 bn”: Prosecutor General Nabil Sadek referred three former executives from Tri-Ocean Energy (now known as Mog Energy) to a criminal court for prosecution on charges they embezzled as much as USD 1 bn. The case first made headlines last October, when it broke in Youm7. The firm’s former deputy chairman, Mohamed Al Ansari, was among the three arrested, according to Reuters, which cites state news agency MENA. The former execs are charged with allegedly funneling around USD 950 mn from the company’s accounts to their personal accounts through shell corporations, according to details of the allegations published in Al Mal. The three are reportedly being charged with a second count of embezzlement related to a USD 18.5 mn sum.

The USD 1 bn figure seems far fetched, even for an oil-trading business, which was Tri-Ocean’s primary focus at the time of the alleged crimes. There’s likely a message to the business community in prosecutors zeroing in on the USD 1 bn figure while moving ahead with a separate charge on a substantially more realistic USD 18.5 bn figure.

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