Lebanese 'steal' their own money from banks at gunpoint and with gasoline cans

Last January, after holding the employees of his bank branch hostage for almost four hours with a pistol, ten liters of gasoline and a lighter, the Lebanese Abdala al Saii received a cardboard box with 50,000 dollars in cash from trembling hands. (about 47,500 euros) that he could not withdraw from his account for good because of the bank corralito in force since 2019. He could have been satisfied, but it bothered him to be treated like a thief.

“I told the employee: 'I'm not stealing.

You have to give it to me by hand and remove that amount from my account.'

They called the head office in Beirut, who told them that the system didn't allow it and to write me a receipt by hand.

I replied that I was not leaving without the official receipt.

And so it was ”, he recalls as he reclines on the sofa in his house in the town of Kefraya, in the Bekaa valley,

.

Abdala al Saii, at his home in Kefraya.Oliver Marsden (Oliver Marsden)

Al Saii recounts that, after living in Venezuela and Colombia for 12 years, he acquired a vegetable store and another for drinks in his native Kefraya.

A year ago one of them was robbed (“he was used to Venezuela,” he clarifies) and he asked his bank for a check for $50,000.

There he began a coming and going of offers and threats.

“Two branch managers left for me.

Once I went, I put the gun that I always carry with me on the counter and I told him: 'Either you show me the safe or I'll kill you.'

He opened it and I was surprised to see that there was not a single dollar, ”he says.

Weeks later, fired up by seeing some clients get dollars, he went to the cemetery, pronounced the

(the first sura of the Koran) in front of his mother's grave, he picked up a lighter, put a nine-liter can and two small bottles of gasoline in a large backpack, and entered the bank.

When there were no children inside, he opened a bottle and held the lit lighter with his other hand.

"Now I'll make you the check!" Said an employee.

I replied: 'I don't want it anymore, now I want my 50,000 in cash.'

He sprayed fuel computers and barricaded the door with two couches.

Six employees and a security guard were inside.

Three hours later, one of them called the headquarters in Beirut and shouted: "You are negotiating with our souls, I am going to open the safe and give you the money!"

Fifteen minutes later he received the green light to do so.

Al Saii gave the money to his wife, who took him home without being arrested.

He spent 17 days in prison.

“I am thinking of repeating and I encourage people to do the same.

If someone has a million in the bank and gives me permission, I will do it for him ”, he sentences despite the fact that his legal case is still open.

Protest at the door of a bank at the end of November.

In Lebanon, 80% of the population is below the poverty line.Diego Ibarra

The action marked the way in a country immersed in a brutal economic crisis, exacerbated by the pandemic and the explosion in the port of Beirut in 2020. It is probably one of the three worst since the mid-19th century, according to the World Bank.

Some twenty Lebanese have since obtained their money by force ―sometimes to pay hospital bills for a highly privatized healthcare facility― to the applause of a population that, jaded and indignant, points to the politicians (“everyone means everyone”, it was one of the mottos of the frustrated social revolt of 2019) and to the banks, which profited in a kind of pyramid scheme until the drought of liquidity in dollars was exposed.

Today, 80% of the population (6.8 million) is below the poverty line and the currency has lost 90% of its value,

This week there have been two

.

On Tuesday, Edro Jodr, an 87-year-old woman, held a sit-in with her son until she raised $5,500 to cover medical expenses.

A day later, in Shhiim, 40 kilometers south of the capital, Walid Hajjar doused the branch with gasoline and threatened to burn it down if they did not give him the $50,000 he owed for an experimental cancer treatment for his wife.

“My mother is in a lot of pain, all the time on morphine.

And what my father has in the bank is the result of 30 years of work.

He is a butcher and it was the way to save for old age and have the money protected, so that it would not be stolen at home ”, lamented Ahmad, his 22-year-old son, at the doors of the branch, who was showing the invoices on his mobile hospitable

Nur, the sick woman's sister, explained that the family has already sold two pieces of land, two workshops, a car and gold.

Dozens of relatives and supporters alternated crying and indignant speeches with moments of waiting and silence.

Hajjar, who had entered at noon, left at night with $42,500 and an undisclosed amount in Lebanese pounds.

A bank branch protected with steel plates, in the Lebanese city of Tripoli.Oliver Marsden (Oliver Marsden)

The outcome, as in most of these assaults, shows how in the Middle East the impossible can become possible in a matter of hours.

The first demand for money, with nerves and threats, is faced with: "I can't."

Police and firefighters take the entrance while a group forms and the military is stationed a few tens of meters away.

Hours later, offers begin for a smaller amount and in Lebanese currency, at a much lower exchange rate than on the street.

As fatigue, pressure and the desire of the police to put an end to the mess grow, the negotiation begins to include more and less dollars and fewer pounds, until an agreement is sealed.

Usually a family member receives the money.

When the assailant makes sure that he made it home, he turns himself in to the police.

They interrogate him at the police station.

but he rarely spends more than a few days in jail.

Banks no longer usually press charges, aware of the rejection they generate in Lebanon in 2022. In the most viralized case on social networks, the young Sali Hafez left calmly and to applause with a gun and $13,000 to pay for cancer treatment of his sister.

Everything occurs in a mixture of drama and everyday life.

During the assault in Shhiim, several neighbors took what little cash they could from the ATM (the corralito allows up to 100 dollars a week).

Bassam al Sheikh Hussein

He says that he phoned his wife to explain why he would be home late, that his brother passed him cigarettes through the window so he could smoke in a branch doused with gasoline, and that the owner of a well-known restaurant called the bank to announce that he was sending free dishes. locals such as

,

or

both for him (who did not try them for fear that it was a trap) and for the hostages.

Bassam al Sheikh Hussein, who held up a bank with hostages last August in order to withdraw his savings, at his home in Ouzai.

Diego Ibarra

Al Sheikh Hussein is not exactly a negotiator.

Aged 42 and unemployed, he studied the branch for half a year.

“I knew what time the director came in, what happened to the key and where the safe was.

Meanwhile, something was burning more and more inside me, ”he recounts in his house in Ouzai, a poor suburb of Beirut, while his wife smiles and his four-year-old son falls asleep.

In August, he entered with a rifle and 20 liters of gasoline.

He forced the manager to open the safe and beat him when he offered only $5,000.

“I just wanted my money.

I didn't think of anything else.

He knew how to get in, but not how to get out.

I didn't want it for my father's hospital, which was already paid for by pawning gold and jewels.

I wanted everything, ”he admits.

It's all $210,000 that he attributes to the sale of a family apartment.

In the end he settled for 35.

000 and the promise of 400 daily.

After five days arrested in which, he says, the policemen congratulated him for doing what they only fantasized about, he was received in Ouzai on the shoulders and with celebratory shots in the air.

He shows it off on video before adding: “By force.

It is the only way.

One day there will be blood in the banks.

Fuad Debs, a lawyer member of the Association of Depositors, one of the groups that emerged in the heat of the corralito and representative of five of the assailants, admits that the new phenomenon "is not the solution", but considers it "the only way to put pressure on the authorities to carry out a fair, transparent, global recovery plan that includes the restructuring of the public debt and the banking system, with purification of responsibilities”.

"It's either this or people become more violent," he points out in a Beirut cafeteria before specifying that 98% of the accounts (1.2 million) have up to $500,000, while half of the blocked money is concentrated in just a thousand.

The assaults are transcending the confessional structure that corsets the country: Al Saii is a Sunni;

Al Sheikh Hussein, Shia;

and Cynthia Zarazir, a Christian.

The latter entered her branch in October without weapons and left with $8,500.

She is one of the alternative candidates for the traditional political elite, heirs to

(revolution) of 2019 that won a seat in the elections last May.

At 40 years old and with a chronic illness, the doctor urged him to have an emergency operation.

Private insurance required a co-payment of that amount.

“The decision was very fast.

He didn't have time.

The doctor told me that in a few days it would no longer be very safe to operate ”, he recounted today in the capital, between grimaces of pain as he moved through the aftermath of the surgical intervention.

He first sent the medical documentation to the bank.

“They told me: 'We'll call you back.'

Then the director and one of the employees would answer me things like 'you're dreaming' or 'even if you're going to die you don't have the right to that money'.

Even the customer service center stopped answering my phone to make an appointment ”, he says.

Lebanese parliamentarian Cynthia Zarazir, in her office in Beirut on October 5.

Diego Ibarra

Ten days after the medical consultation and after delaying the operation due to not being able to pay for it, Zarazir stood before the branch, announced his waiver of parliamentary immunity and entered with his lawyer.

“They received me very well, but as soon as I said that I would not leave without my money, panic started.

They set off the alarm, they took people out… I said, 'I'm not armed, I just came with documents for my $8,500, which is a small part of my account.'

Shortly after, she came out with the tickets and a confidentiality document that she had signed and tore up as soon as she walked through the door.

He believes that the seat did not help him to obtain the money peacefully, quite the contrary.

“For them it was an extra reason to use it as a lesson to everyone.

And that was his intention.

But they couldn't, due to the pressure from other deputies who came, from the press, from the people… In fact, I adopted a low profile and let them search my bag”.

He admits, that so, that it was not just an impulse of need.

“Yes, clearly it was also a political act against the system that stole our money.

[…] Everyone who needs money should not suffer any more for the benefit of this government and the banks”.

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