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By Libya Herald reporter
Tunis, 9 August 2015:
Acting in cooperation with the Public Prosecution’s Office, the Audit Bureau revealed a list of . . .[restrict]eleven companies that had fraudulently smuggled foreign currency abroad through fake import transactions.
The named companies had opened Letters of Credit (LC) to import goods, but had shipped empty containers into Libya.
Questions are being asked about the ports, customs and inspection authorities for failing to notice that the containers were empty.
The Audit Bureau listed the eleven accused companies with the number of empty containers imported into Libya. The company with the least empty containers had just one container but the worst offender was a company that had fraudulently sent 18 empty containers to Libya in return for LC’s opened.
LCs are opened through banks at the official low bank exchange rate of US$ 1 to LD 1.30 instead of the (today’s) black market rate of LD 2.50. The whole operations were basically a currency exchange scam.
This latest move comes on the back of the Audit Bureau freezing the bank accounts of a total of 79 Libyan and foreign companies as well as individuals from either transferring foreign currency, opening Letters of Credit (LCs) or being the recipients of Libyan LCs.
The suspension announced last week, was as a result of their ‘’questionable’’ banking transactions manipulating LCs, the Audit Bureau said.
In total there were 25 Libyan companies, 42 Libyan individuals and 12 foreign recipient companies suspended. [/restrict]
