Saudi authorities are negotiating settlements with princes and businessmen held over allegations of corruption, offering deals for the detainees to pay for their freedom, people briefed on the discussions say.
In some cases the government is seeking to appropriate as much as 70 per cent of suspects’ wealth, two of the people said, in a bid to channel hundreds of billions of dollars into depleted state coffers.
The arrangements, which have already seen some assets and funds handed over to the state, provide an insight into the strategy behind Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s dramatic corruption purge.
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Regular Saudis, who’ve seen their benefits cut and some of their jobs taken away, support MbS’s decision. “Why should the poor take all the pain of austerity,” said one Saudi academic. “The rich need to pay their way too.”
In Saudi Arabia, they are about to do just that.