Lawyers for human rights organizations accusing former Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati of amassing a vast fortune through fraudulent means announced they had obtained a decision from the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office in Paris to open an investigation into his supposed “illicit” assets, they told AFP.
L’Orient-Le Jour reported that the investigation follows a complaint filed in April 2024 by the “Association of Victims of Fraudulent and Criminal Practices in Lebanon” and the French anti-corruption organization Sherpa, according to lawyer William Bourdon. The complaint was supplemented with new elements in April 2025.
Mikati’s press office told AFP that it had “not received any official notification” regarding the investigation. Mikati stressed that he “has always acted within the law,” noting that “the origin of the family’s wealth is transparent, legitimate, and in compliance with legislation.”
The plaintiffs accuse Mikati, his brother Taha Mikati, and members of their family of acquiring assets in France and abroad through multiple companies and offshore structures, and of accumulating their wealth fraudulently and evading taxes. The complaint includes accusations of money laundering, receiving or complicity in such crimes, and forming an organized criminal gang.
Lawyers William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth believe that this investigation “may limit the ability of those seeking, at any cost, to undermine the ongoing process aimed at putting an end to the plunder of private interests at the expense of the state and the public interest of the Lebanese.”
It is worth noting that the same associations were behind the ongoing French investigation into the former Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon, Riad Salameh, who is subject to judicial proceedings in Paris and has an international arrest warrant issued against him. His brother, Raja Salameh, has also been charged. Both deny the charges against them.