Seychelles Supreme Court orders couple suspected of laundering $50 million held

Palais de Justice which houses the Supreme Court. (Judiciary)

(Seychelles News Agency) - The Seychelles Supreme Court has remanded for 14 days a Seychellois couple arrested on suspicion of money laundering $50 million.

Justice Rony Govinden, the presiding judge, dismissed the defence attorney's request for bail on the grounds that the charges are serious.

The two suspects were arrested by the judicial police on Thursday.

"This is a political affair," one of the suspects told SNA.

The suspect, who was close to the late former President France Albert René, was the Managing Director of the SMB Company, where the money was transferred.

The money was granted to the Seychelles' government by the United Arab Emirates in 2002.

The $50 million was granted to the Seychelles' government by the United Arab Emirates in 2002. The fund was transferred to a bank account of the Seychelles Marketing Board (SMB), now the Seychelles Trading Company (STC), in a Baroda bank in England. The case resurfaced in 2014 before the presidential election.

The Anti-Corruption Commission said the couple had set up a whole network, which allowed them to hide the money and then bring it back to Seychelles, an archipelago in the western Indian Ocean, to buy hotels.

During the search at the couple's residence, the police said they discovered a rifle with ammunition, which is another offence.

This is the second corruption case that the Anti-Corruption Commission has brought to the courts in Seychelles this year.