International
CORRUPTION PROBE: Another billionaire businesman arrested as Saudi crackdown continues
A day after the arrest of Nasser bin Aqeel al-Tayyar, the founder of Saudi’s biggest travel firm, another billionaire businessman Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has been arrested as the anti-corruption purge widens.
The arrest of the top entrepreneur adds to the mass arrests of Saudi Arabian royals, ministers and businessmen in what is described as the the biggest anti-corruption purge of the kingdom’s affluent elite in its modern history.
However critics are clawing into the dramatic steps by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to assert his authority after going to war in Yemen and cranking up Riyadh’s confrontation with arch-foe Iran among others things.
Read also: SAUDI ARABIA: 11 princes, 4 ministers,others, docked for corruption
“The kingdom is at a crossroads: Its economy has flattened with low oil prices; the war in Yemen is a quagmire; the blockade of Qatar is a failure; Iranian influence is rampant in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq; and the succession is a question mark,” wrote ex-CIA official Bruce Riedel.
“It is the most volatile period in Saudi history in over a half-century.”
Sources say the arrests were made after fresh investigations were launched into the 2009 Jeddah floods and the outbreak of the Mers virus which emerged in Saudi Arabia in 2012 even as many of those detained were not named.
RipplesNigeria… without borders, without fears
Click here to join the Ripples Nigeria WhatsApp group for latest updates.
Join the conversation
Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism
Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.
As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.
If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.
Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.
INVESTIGATION: In Kwara, multimillion-naira milk processing plant is abandoned, converted to a chicken outlet
After the government spent millions of naira to establish a milk processing plant in Kwara State that would provided jobs...
SPECIAL REPORT: For Sokoto communities, promise of healthcare is akin to death sentence
In this story, ABDULRASHEED HAMMAD delves into the dire realities of Primary Health Care services in Sokoto State, shedding light...
ICYMI…SPECIAL REPORT: NNPCL hides behind PIA to frustrate disclosure, accountability
Nigeria’s major oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), in what appears to be a common practice of disregard...
INVESTIGATION: Multi-million naira Ekiti resort center remains uncompleted a decade after
The multimillion-naira project, expected to comprise recreational buildings, now consists of cassava farmland, a bush used for excretion, and a...
SPECIAL REPORT: Torturous experiences of students with disabilities in Oyo tertiary institutions
For students with disabilities in Oyo state-owned tertiary institutions, learning is a torturous and distressing experience, considering the building structures...