After having recovered a significant part of the embezzled property located in Algeria, the Algerian authorities are working to repatriate the property transferred abroad by oligarchs and former officials convicted by the courts in cases of corruption.
The President of the Republic Abdelmadjid Tebboune raised the subject in an interview with Al Jazeera Podcast.
On December 27, the Minister of Justice, Abderrachid Tebbi, listed the assets recovered after final confiscation decisions pronounced by the courts, worth the equivalent of 20 billion dollars.
Since then, the figure has increased, now standing at 22/23 billion dollars, according to the President of the Republic. “We started with the goods that are in Algeria, the money, the planes, etc. So far, justice has pronounced the confiscation of property worth the equivalent of 22/23 billion dollars,” said Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
The Algerian state now wants to recover the ill-gotten gains transferred abroad. During his visit to Algeria last March, the Vice-President of the European Commission and its High Representative for Foreign Policy, Joseph Borell, stated the EU’s readiness to cooperate with Algeria on the issue of restitution of misappropriated property.
For Abdelmadjid Tebboune, it is a “duty” for Europeans to cooperate with Algeria in this case “because all the illegal transfer operations of Algerian money have been made to their countries and the accounts are in their country” .
The transfers were made to “all European countries, particularly the Mediterranean countries, France, Spain Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg”, he said.
Ali Haddad’s hotels in Spain in the process of being recovered by Algeria
This cooperation from Europe is beginning to materialize since, according to the Head of State, Spain has agreed to return to Algeria three hotels belonging to an Algerian oligarch.
These are luxury hotels rated 5 stars. Asked if it is Ali Haddad, the president simply replied: “I am not quoting names”. He referred to the oligarch in question as “that gentleman.” Ali Haddad, a former Algerian public works tycoon, is known to also own luxury hotels in Spain.
Spain was one of the preferred destinations for embezzling Algerian funds. Since March 2022, the two countries have been in a political crisis because of Madrid’s change of position on the Western Sahara issue.
In June of the same year, Algeria suspended the treaty of friendship and good neighborliness which linked it to Spain, and trade between the two countries has been practically blocked since that date.
The Minister of Justice revealed on December 27 before the National People’s Assembly (APN) that the Algerian justice system issued 220 letters of rogatory and requests for mutual legal assistance in more than 30 foreign countries in order to recover property and funds that were illegally transferred there.
Regarding the property confiscated and recovered in Algeria with a value equivalent to 20 billion dollars, Mr. Tebbi had specified that it was, among other things, real estate promotions, luxury villas, buildings, agricultural perimeters, factories, complexes tourist attractions, rolling stock and bank accounts.
The figure of 20 billion dollars of recovered assets was first revealed by President Tebboune on December 22 during one of his periodic interviews with the national press. He had promised that the operation will continue and will concern the embezzled funds and being outside the banks.
