State Security arrests employees at Beirut Port on corruption and extortion charges

The General Directorate of State Security – Media, Guidance and Public Relations Division, issued the following statement:

"As part of the General Directorate of State Security’s efforts to combat corruption and the squandering of public funds, and following information that some employees in the Beirut Port Operations Department were extorting customs clearance agents and soliciting bribes, the Beirut Port office of the General Directorate of State Security, in coordination with the Financial Public Prosecution, conducted the necessary investigation with customs clearance agents, some of whom acknowledged that they had been subjected to extortion and the obstruction of their transactions by employees in the Beirut Port Operations Department, with the aim of forcing them to pay sums of money unlawfully.

Based on the instructions of the competent judicial authority, three employees in the Beirut Port Operations Department — (A.Q.), (A.K.) and (M.B.) — were summoned. During questioning, they admitted that they had been receiving money in exchange for facilitating and expediting the agents’ transactions and, in some cases, exempting them from paying port fees owed to the public treasury.

They were arrested and referred to the competent judiciary upon its instruction."