Amin Construction also an actor in FAM fraud: Police

Famous local construction company Amin Construction also played a hand in the Football Association of Maldives (FAM)'s corruption, it has been revealed as Maldives Police Service seeks to press charges against the company for fraud and money laundering.

In a press conference held today, Police said that Amin Construction attempted to hide the fact that former FAM President Bassam Adeel Jaleel used the association's funds to purchase two apartments in the Amin Avenue residential building developed by Amin Construction.

The agency detailed that Bassam paid USD one million out of the USD 1.9 million issued by FIFA to FAM in order to support the local football clubs during the financial hardship of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Although the transaction was in fact to purchase the two apartments, the company attempted to make it look like a dollar exchange transaction and even forged documents to suggest so despite the Maldivian Rufiyaa equivalent of the USD one million was never transferred back to FAM, said Police.

Additionally, even FAM attempted to make it look like the association received the money, by taking out a loan from another company, Police detailed. The loan amount taken and the amounts on the documents prepared by Amin Construction suggesting the money was transferred to FAM also matched, the agency further revealed.

Police have now requested the Prosecutor General's Office to press charges against Amin Construction, Bassam, and the then financial head of FAM Mohamed Ageel and Hassan Waheed, who was a senior official of the association, with all parties being accused of fraud and money laundering.

Amin Construction is one of the largest construction companies in the Maldives, having had constructed many government buildings including Velana Building.

Amin Construction's involvement in the case came to the attention of Police when they began investigating allegations of money laundering by transferring foreign aid received by FAM to the members of the association's leadership, individuals and companies with close ties to the association, last October.

Last year, Police raided the FAM office and seized various documents from there as well.

The prosecution has also already charged Bassam at the Criminal Court in connection to multiple other transactions in the same case, with trials already in progress.