Tunisia: New arrest warrant against Ridha Charfeddine

The Prosecutor’s Office at the Economic and Financial Judicial pole-issued, today, Monday, a second arrest warrant against businessman Ridha Charfeddine, as part of the prosecution for the crime of carrying out profits abroad without authorization, spokesperson for the Court of First Instance of Tunis, Mohamed Zaitouna, told the Tunisian news agency TAP.

Zaitouna added that the public prosecutor decided to refer Charfeddine, imprisoned pending another case and, currently in prison, before the Correctional Council of the Economic and Financial Judicial Pole to prosecute him based on 12 chapters of the Customs Code and the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Code “for the offense of accumulating earnings outside Tunisia without acquiring authorization” or license from the Central Bank of Tunisia.

The customs investigations department, responsible for Charfeddine’s case, evaluated the financial fine owed by the suspicious activities at approximately 11 million and 750 thousand dinars.

Zaitouna also expressed that the money laundering violation for which Charfeddine, owner of the pharmaceutical manufacturing company Unimed, is being prosecuted, was the subject of an “independent” inquiry, by the provisions of Decree No. 79 of 2022 from December 22. 2022, relating to the finance law for 2023.”

The investigation carried out by the Customs Research Department under the oversight of the General Prosecutor’s Office at the Economic and Financial Judicial Pole, following the suspicions of Charfeddine and the UNIMED Company of having committed “customs offenses and “pure offenses”, proved that the individual concerned has “property and bank accounts outside Tunisia, in particular a bank account opened in a bank in one of the European countries”. The court spokesperson also revealed that the volume of transactions registered in this account amounted, according to the Financial Analysis Commission (affiliated to the Central Bank of Tunisia), to 3.5 million euros, and that Charfeddine “undertook to close the said account on February 16, 2024 and transmit the balance”. He also had 1.2 million euros available that day for his own bank account in an African country.

It should be mentioned that Charfeddine, who is in judicial custody, is being prosecuted for having perpetrated crimes of a financial nature and that his request for release was rejected at the beginning of last March. He was also interviewed last November in what is called the conspiracy case, and it was decided to keep him at liberty.