Bern authorities unable to locate arms dealer owing CHF2.5 million

The mountain village of Gstaad is known as a getaway for the rich and famous including Brigitte Bardot and Roger Moore. © Keystone / Gaetan Bally

Arms dealer and Swiss resident Abdul Rahman El Assir owes the treasury a total of CHF2.5 million ($2.55 million), but his whereabouts are currently unknown.

According to a notice published in the Canton of Bern gazetteExternal link on Wednesday, El Assir did not pay a single tax bill between 2006 and 2013. The dual Spanish-Lebanese citizen has 67 outstanding invoices totaling CHF2.5 million.

The report indicates that El Assir’s current location is unknown. The last place of residence known to authorities was a chalet in Gstaad, a low-tax mountain village known as a getaway for the rich and famous.

El Assir is widely believed to have orchestrated arms deals between companies and countries like Somalia, Sudan and Saudi Arabia, in the process collecting huge commissions, sometimes in the tens of millions.

According to the Berner Zeitung newspaper, the Federal Office of Justice has confirmed that it is aware of the El Assir case but refused to share additional information about any possible investigation. “Search requests are confidential and are subject to official secrecy,” an official told the local paper.

El Assir’s lawyer in Geneva did not comment on his whereabouts or tax debts, stating that he is bound by attorney-client privilege.

The notorious arms dealer is also on the radar of the Spanish authorities, where he is set to be tried for tax fraud, with the public prosecutor’s office demanding eight years in prison and a fine of €90 million.

And El Assir is due to appear in court this fall in France for alleged financial involvement in the Karachi affair. The case concerns money that is said to have flowed to Pakistan for an arms deal and then partly back to France in order to co-finance the 1995 presidential election campaign of then-Prime Minister Edouard Balladur.