Lebanon Prime Minister sent over USD $15 million to a girlfriend in South Africa. Photo / AP
Lebanon Prime Minister sent over USD $15 million to a girlfriend in South Africa. Photo / AP
Lebanon Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, sent more than US$16 million to a South African bikini model, who he had a romantic relationship with, court documents obtained by the New York Times revealed.
Hariri was not in office when he sent the money in 2013 and the transfer does not violate any Lebanese or South African laws.
The announcement comes at a difficult time for Hariri who is being questioned about sending extravagant gifts to young models in South Africa.
"Whatever the campaigns they launch against me and whatever they say, write or do, I will continue to work," Hariri said Tuesday in comments released by his office.
"It is true that we are going through a difficult economic situation and therefore we have to take bold decisions. Every time we make an accomplishment, someone criticises it."
A financial crisis has set off in Lebanon where the Government announced they would declare an "economic state of emergency".
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri with his wife and son. Photo / Getty Images
The married father-of-three did not respond to any questions sent to his media team about his relationship with South African model, Candice van der Merwe or any gifts to her, the New York Times reveals.
The gifts have no clear tie to Lebanon's current economic crisis and Hariri is sufficiently wealthy to have made the large payments to his South African girlfriend himself. The bank transfers to van der Merwe were made between his two terms as Prime Minister, but he was still the leader of his political party.
The South African model was 20 at the time when her bank account balance soared from a transfer for US$15,299,965 from a Lebanese bank.
When government investigators asked the Lebanese bank about the large transfer, a bank official said that: "The sender and beneficiary are boyfriend/girlfriend and are currently together in the Seychelles."
Candice van der Merwe. Photo / Instagram
The transfer would have likely been swept under the rug, but the excessive sum tipped suspicion among the South African financial and tax authorities.
In subsequent court cases, van der Merwe insisted that the money was a gift and that it had been given to her without conditions.
"Love you my Saad :)," van der Merwe wrote in an email to Hariri. She also provided her bank details and that she wanted the money to buy property.
Tax authorities did not believe her claim that the money was a gift so after van der Merwe spent the majority of the money on lavish properties, authorities froze her assets.
She reached a settlement with tax authorities in 2016 and the case was dismissed earlier in September this year, the New York Times says.
In January, van der Merwe sued government officials for $65 million in "damages she attributed to the tax authorities' pursuit of her," according to the New York Times.
These documents made Hariri's relationship with van der Merwe public.
"The plaintiff's relationship with Mr Hariri was terminated, which resulted in the loss of financial benefits that would have accrued to her from the relationship if it had been allowed to persist without outside interference," the lawsuit says.
In court documents, van der Merwe said that she was recruited to travel to exclusive resorts that were "frequented by some of the richest private individuals in the world," including billionaires "for whom money is no object."
In 2012, she spent four days at the Seychelles Islands resort called the Plantation Club where she said she connected with wealthy people and her lifestyle quickly upgraded.
