Najib Mikati is a Lebanese politician and businessman, and one of the country’s top billionaires. He served as a public official in various capacities, including as Lebanon’s Prime Minister for three terms, most recently from September 2021 to February 2025, a critical period marked by the country’s economic collapse and political paralysis.
Mikati and his associates have been subject to investigations in both Lebanon and abroad for money laundering, illicit enrichment, and other financial crimes. These investigations represent one of the rare instances in which powerful politicians in Lebanon have faced judicial scrutiny.
Summary of investigations in Lebanon
Investigations into illicit enrichment from the subsidized housing scheme:
In 2018, journalist Salem Zahran reported that several members of Lebanon’s wealthy political elite, including Mikati, were illegally benefiting from subsidized housing loans intended for lower-income individuals. According to Zahran, Mikati and his family members’ companies benefited from nine subsidized loans between 2010 and 2013, gaining $14 million in housing credits from the Lebanese Central Bank.
Shortly after the October 2019 uprising, Prosecutor Ghada Aoun brought charges against Mikati, his son Maher, and others, for illicit enrichment and other Penal Code violations related to this case. This marked the first application of Lebanon’s illicit enrichment law, originally drafted in 1953. Mikati denied all allegations, claiming they were politically motivated and that the loans had been granted in accordance with Central Bank regulations.
The case was later assigned to investigative judge Charbel Abou Samra, who dropped the charges in 2022 on the procedural grounds that the charges were filed after the expiration of the statute of limitations, the period after which prosecution cannot be initiated. Experts criticized the judge’s decision, arguing that he calculated the limitation period from the date the last loan was issued in 2013, rather than from the date the crime was discovered in 2018, as the law stipulates. Regardless, investigations in this case have since been closed.
Investigations in relation to the unlawful acquisition of shares in Bank Audi:
In early 2025, Prosecutor Ghada Aoun filed new charges against Najib Mikati, his brother Taha, former Central Bank governor Riad Salameh, and Bank Audi over allegations of money laundering, abuse of power, and illicit enrichment.
The new charges stem from the fact that between 2010 and 2014, Najib and Taha borrowed nearly $300 million from Bank Audi (around $150 million each) at a low interest rate, then used the funds to buy bonds that were later used as collateral to purchase shares in Bank Audi itself. The purchase occurred under Riad Salameh’s supervision, in violation of the Monetary and Credit Code, which prohibits banks from financing the purchase of their own shares.
Moreover, the Mikati brothers together held more than 10 percent of Bank Audi’s capital, exceeding the maximum legal amount a single entity may hold without approval from the Central Bank’s Board. To circumvent this requirement, the two brothers structured their holdings as two separate entities.
Prosecutor Aoun encountered numerous obstacles during her investigations in this case and others involving financial crimes allegedly committed by politically exposed persons in Lebanon. Notably, the General Public Prosecutor ordered her to halt inquiries in this case and transfer the file to the Public Prosecution at the Court of Cassation for further investigation. The General Public Prosecutor also issued a notice to the security forces instructing them not to communicate with Prosecutor Aoun or carry out any instructions she might issue.
Nevertheless, Prosecutor Aoun continued working on the case and filed charges against Mikati and others in March 2025, just one day before her retirement. However, the investigative judge assigned to the case dismissed the filing on procedural grounds, stating that Prosecutor Aoun had violated the General Public Prosecutor’s order.
In early 2026, new developments emerged regarding Bank Audi’s share acquisition and illicit enrichment activities. A group of complainants, including Members of Parliament and the Depositors Union, filed a complaint with the Financial Public Prosecutor in Lebanon against Najib Mikati, Taha Mikati, Riad Salameh, Samir Hanna, the Bank Audi director at the time, and others.
The complaint concerns allegations including money laundering, illicit enrichment, and embezzlement of public funds facilitated by the defendants. According to the complainants, the Central Bank financed the purchase of Bank Audi shares through offshore companies registered in the Cayman Islands to conceal the identity of the final beneficiaries of these arrangements. The complainants allege that these companies are linked to Riad Salameh and his family, as well as the Mikati brothers, whose profits from these schemes reportedly exceeded $400 million.
No further action had been taken by the prosecution at the time of drafting this explainer.
Summary of investigations in foreign countries
Investigations into Najib Mikati’s financial abuses have not been limited to Lebanon; authorities in foreign countries have also launched probes into his suspected financial crimes, allegedly facilitated through his companies and bank accounts abroad.
The first foreign probe into Mikati’s financial abuses was launched in Monaco in 2020. Judicial authorities opened investigations into Mikati, his son Maher, and his brother Taha over allegations of money laundering linked to the 2019 subsidized housing loans case in Lebanon, in which illicit gains were suspected of being transferred to bank accounts and companies linked to Mikati in Monaco. Authorities in Monaco investigated the case for three years before the prosecution dropped it due to insufficient evidence.
Efforts to investigate Mikati’s financial activities continued after the release of the Pandora Papers in 2021, a massive leak of millions of documents that exposed secret financial dealings of powerful individuals around the world. The leak revealed that Mikati owned offshore companies in tax havens worldwide.
In April 2024, the two anti-corruption organizations Sherpa and the Collective of Victims of Fraudulent and Criminal Practices filed a complaint with the French National Financial Prosecution’s Office against him and his associates over alleged financial crimes, including money laundering. The complaint concerns various companies and real estate owned by Mikati and his relatives in France and other countries, as well as assets including two yachts owned by him and his brother and two private jets. It questions the origins of this wealth and the funds that passed through the French banking system and calls for further investigation into the Mikatis’ alleged acts of money laundering and illicit acquisition of assets.
In July 2025, Accountability Now filed another criminal complaint with the French prosecutor involving alleged fraudulent schemes that enabled the embezzlement of public funds and the illicit acquisition of Bank Audi shares for private gain. In September 2025, the French National Financial Prosecutor’s Office launched a preliminary probe into Mikati’s alleged financial crimes. At the time of drafting this explainer, investigations in France are still ongoing.
The significance of domestic and international investigations
People in Lebanon have been suffering for over six years since the 2019 economic collapse. Therefore, it is vital to investigate the enablers of these crises who benefited from embezzled public funds.
International probes provide an external avenue for pursuing accountability and applying pressure on the Lebanese authorities to act
The complementarity between domestic and international investigations is crucial. Given the political obstruction that has hindered domestic investigations into financial abusers in Lebanon, international probes provide an external avenue for pursuing accountability and applying pressure on the Lebanese authorities to act. For instance, following the launch of investigations into Najib Mikati and others in France, the Lebanese Central Bank decided to file lawsuits against its former governor and other officials and business elites accused of misusing their power and committing financial crimes. This development shows how domestic and international efforts together can lead to progressive outcomes.
Should any of these investigations move forward, it would represent a significant step towards breaking the sense of complete impunity that Mikati and others have benefited from for years.
Disclaimer: All information in this case profile is drawn from publicly available open-source materials, as official records are not accessible to the public.