A US District Court jury in Brooklyn, New York, found Jean Boustani not
guilty right after the Thanksgiving holiday on three counts of fraud
and money laundering, ending a six-week trial and releasing the Lebanese
businessman after 11 months in a New York City jail.
He was accused of defrauding U.S. investors in a $2
billion global loan scandal. Members of the jury, who declined to be
identified, said they had a difficult time understanding why the case was being
tried in the United States, since the fraud, the companies involved and the
defendant were all based overseas. They didn’t think that federal prosecutors
had the authority to charge Boustani with crimes that hadn’t occurred within
their jurisdiction.
About the Case
The charges against Boustani stem from an alleged scheme to
funnel illicit payments to Swiss and Russian bankers and to
Mozambican officials to win business for Privinvest, a
Middle East-based shipbuilder and employer of Boustani.
The federal prosecutors maintained that Boustani was a key player in the
alleged scheme. But Boustani’s attorney countered that the deal was simply a
business venture that failed to meet its potential and said in his opening
statement that “The United States is not the world’s policeman”.
About the Tuna Bond Trial
The case revolves around three Mozambique-owned projects – EMATUM, a fleet of tuna fishing boats; MAM, a shipyard, and Proindicus, a fleet of vessels to be used in a fraud detection system for patrolling coastlines. After doing little or no business, the three ventures failed and contributed to Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest countries, defaulting on its Euro bonds in 2017. The default caused several top government officials in Mozambique to resign.
The funding for this venture came from loans from Credit Suisse Group and
the Russian bank, VTB. Prosecutors claimed that Boustani
and Privinvest inflated the cost of the equipment and paid bribes to Credit
Suisse bankers. But all of those claims were unanimously rejected by the jury
in what could be a landmark case.