"The imprisoned, among whom are billionaire and Kingdom Holding chairman Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Al Tayyar Travel Group founder Nasser bin Aqeel al-Tayyar and chairman of builder Red Sea International construction company Amr al-Dabbagh, are accused of money laundering, bribery, extorting officials and misappropriation of public office.

Interestingly, the Saudi authorities have announced that all economical assets seized from those found guilty will be confiscated as state property. Even a no-fly list has reportedly been drawn up, and security forces have been deployed in order to prevent private jet owners from leaving the kingdom." AMN

--------------

Let's not kid ourselves. What the West calls "corruption" in business and government is the very basis of life in Saudi Arabia along with the the Wahhabi version of Islam, a version that resembles a bug frozen for all time in amber.

A lot of these business people and their companies (same thing normally in SA where true public companies are rare) will have long ago offshored much of their assets. Foreign bank accounts, dummy chains of shell holding companies leading to a pot of gold at the end of the chain, Foreign law firms that manage hidden assets as in the the Paradise Papers, these are all methods.

It is significant that MbS has imprisoned these people in a luxury hotel rather than putting them in house arrest where they could attempt to arrange to be smuggled out of the big sand box. He has also not put them in hotel style royal guest houses where they might have connections among the government people who run them. IMO MbS intends to beggar some of these people and geld the rest, figuratively speaking.

This purge of his possible enemies and rivals was well prepared. Key to preventing a counter-coup was the removal and replacements of the heads of the security services and the silencing of the Wahhabi ulema.' I earlier thought that MbS might act against the senior Shia ulema' but that may not be true. He has been engaged in "preaching" toleration of other than Wahhabism. Quelle horreur!! In this circumstance the Shia clergy may see MbS as a friend and he may leave them alone.



Might one someday see a church in Saudi Arabia like those in many other majority Muslim countries? Saudi Arabia as I have personally known it has been a theocratically driven police state. When I was DATT there I was repeatedly asked by attache colleagues to smuggle Filipino, Pakistani and other Christians into the secret Christmas services held in the US Embassy. I was glad to do so.

MbS has abolished the arrest powers of the Mutawi'iin, the religious "decency" police. These are the worthless, scrawny old bastards in short thawb who wander the streets beating women whose behavior they do not like. For that alone I am favorably inclined to him.

Unfortunately, he has foreign policy delusions of grandeur in which he is making common cause with redheiferland and the gaudy world of Trump Administration delusions about the Middle East. pl

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/riyadh-freezes-1200-saudi-bank-accounts/