Dozens of businessmen, princes, and officials were referred to trials or settlements were made with them by the regime of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the past years on charges of corruption and illegal profiteering. The matter is very strange as the corrupt person is the one who adopts fighting corruption.
Observers and specialists questioned the Crown Prince's seriousness in the anti-corruption campaign at a time when many Western reports spoke about the extravagance of Saudi Crown Prince MBS, as he bought a house, a tourist boat, and an international painting worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
According to local news agencies, a senior official in the National Guard and five others were tried in a major corruption case in a tourism project for MBS, and a royal order of retirement of an official was made as well as firing a number of officials following irregular encroachments on the lands of the “Red Sea Project” , and investigations with all officials in charge.
All these campaigns came after a campaign of arrests in 2017against prominent businessmen and former ministers, where Riyadh said at the time that it is a campaign to fight corruption, and days after their detention, the American Bloomberg Agency said – citing informed sources, that “The detainees at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh have started paying the settlement amounts that they were asked to pay in exchange for their release”.
The Saudi authorities speak about fighting corruption and transparency however the American newspaper “The Wall Street Journal” revealed that the Crown Prince spent $ 50 million on a private party for his new mandate. The newspaper recounted the incident that took place in the luxurious “Villa Private Island” resort in the Maldives, noting the anchoring of boats carrying 150 women from Brazil, Russia, and other countries, where each of them was transferred to a clinic to be examined for sexually transmitted diseases before each of them were sent to her own villa.
The newspaper reported that the women were scheduled to spend the greater part of the month with their hosts, who are dozens of friends of the young prince, and employees were prohibited from bringing mobile phones with cameras. The American rapper Pitbull and South Korean star Psy made a performance there.
The New York Times revealed that MBS bought the most expensive house in the world in 2015 – that is when his father Salman took the throne. It was the palace of King Louis XIV, located in Louvciennes near Paris, with a value of $300 million, and that the area of the palace covers 23 thousand hectares, and in the middle of it is a gold-plated fountain.
The same newspaper also revealed that MBS bought the “Savior” painting by the famous Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci for $450 million in late 2017.
The Western press also revealed that MBS bought a yacht worth $550 million in 2016 during a short vacation in southern France. The yacht is 440 feet long and includes swimming pools, 12 luxurious rooms, and two areas for landing helicopters.
