Luxembourg bank helped UAE s MBZ bypass US sanctions, attack Qatar, report reveals
Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed in Berlin, Germany on 11 June 2019 [Sean Gallup/Getty Images] December 22, 2020 at 3:22 pm
A report by
Bloomberg
News has uncovered further details of the sordid relationship between UAE Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed and the Luxembourg-based private bank, Banque Havilland. A trove of emails, documents, legal filings reviewed by the American news agency, and interviews with former insiders, revealed that services provided by Banque Havilland to Bin Zayed, better known as MBZ, went beyond normal standard practice.
MBZ, who the bank referred to as the boss , was offered services that went beyond financial advice. According to the
Financier David Rowland, who used Britain’s Prince Andrew as an unofficial door opener, has another close relationship with a member of royalty. This one lives in the Middle East, and executives at Rowland’s Banque Havilland referred to him as “the Boss.”
A trove of emails, documents and legal filings reviewed by Bloomberg News, as well as interviews with former insiders, reveal the extent of the services Rowland and his private bank provided to one of its biggest customers, Mohammed bin Zayed, better known as MBZ, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates. Some of the work went beyond financial advice. It included scouting for deals in Zimbabwe, setting up a company to buy the image rights of players on the Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City Football Club and helping place the bank’s chairman at the time on the board of Human Rights Watch after it published reports critical of the Persian Gulf country.