The Public Prosecution has initiated a public lawsuit against nine individuals who committed acts harmful to the national economy.
The Attorney General’s Office reported yesterday that its Chief Prosecutor conducted an investigation, examining the elements of the Central Bank of Libya’s request and the evidence of the Criminal Investigation Department. This was regarding incidents of illicit profiteering using point-of-sale (POS) equipment owned by exchange companies operating in Turkey and Egypt.
The investigation revealed that the defendants, in Tripoli, used unlicensed POS terminals for direct debit (electronic cards) funded by certain citizens to obtain their foreign currency allocations for personal purposes, without going through the national banking system.
The Public Prosecution has remanded the defendants in custody pending the outcome of the investigation.
Background to the black-market hard currency debit card market
It will be recalled that Libyans are allocated an annual hard currency allowance charged on a debit card at the preferential official exchange rate.
This debit card can only be used to pay for goods and services or withdraw cash abroad. Many Libyans choose to sell this allowance on the foreign currency / exchange (FX) black market by selling the card with its pin code to FX black-market traders, rather than incur the added cost of flying abroad. The traders fly abroad, to usually Turkey, often carrying tens of cards, and withdraw the hard currency there and return and sell it in Libya on the black-market.
However, with the aforementioned arrests, it seems some black-market traders have found a way to cash these debit cards from within Libya and bypass the Libyan banking system.
