Saudi Arabia arrests five military officers on corruption charges

Dubai: Saudi Arabia’s Oversight and Anti-Corruption Authority (Nazaha) has arrested five military officers who received money transfers of millions of riyals to their bank accounts in Switzerland.

According to local media reports, the anti-graft body was able to discover new corruption cases involving Saudis and expatriate residents as part of its campaign to crack down on corruption and illegal graft practices.

Investigations led to the arrest of five military officers, including a retired major general pilot at the Ministry of Defence, for receiving nine million riyals and a luxury car worth 500,000 riyals from an expatriate resident who works in a company contracted with the Ministry of Defence in exchange for facilitating the company’s transactions with the ministry.

Another retired military officer was arrested for receiving 945,000 riyals from a business firm in exchange for awarding the company contracts with the ministry.

A lieutenant colonel at the civil defence was also arrested for accepting a bribe of 509,000 riyals from two expats working at a maintenance company in exchange for awarding the company a maintenance contract.

The investigations also led to the arrest of two officers at the General Directorate of Passports for facilitating the illegal entry of persons through land checkpoints in return for 65,000 riyals.

In another case, five employees at the Ministry of Health were arrested for misappropriating 9.2million riyals in salaries and dues of expatriate employees at the ministry.