September 7, 2016
How do you launder one-and-a-half billion dollars? If it is denominated in $100 bills, it would be the equivalent of 12 fully stacked palettes. Buying property, art and expensive watches does not cut it. So the Maldives president’s closest ministers and aides came up with a plan. Stealing Paradise, a documentary by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit, has shown that the Maldives government “controls all the levers of state” and often uses them for nefarious purposes. This time, they thought they would pull those levers in the service of secretive Asian businessmen representing a boss referred to only as “Mr Hans”.
The plan was remarkably simple. They would charter a plane to fly the money to the Maldives, accompanied by security guards. The guards would hand it over to local soldiers, who would supervise its transfer to a vault. There, it would be counted and verified by Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) officials. The central bankers would then credit a private company account. Finally, the owners would gradually telegraph-transfer the money back out.