Prince Alwaleed Moved To Highest Security Saudi Prison After Refusing To Pay $6 Billion For Freedom

from ZeroHedge:

Goodbye Ritz Carlton. Saudi Arabia’s billionaire prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, has been carted off to Al Ha’ir prison – the Kingdom’s highest security prison – after refusing to pay  a reported $6 billion to Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to secure his freedom, following a massive consolidation of power on November 4, 2017 in which over 300 princes, ministers and other elites were rounded up in an “anti-corruption” purge.

Sources told the news site that nearly 60 detainees were transferred to the most high security prison in the Kingdom. The prisoners include Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal as Prince Turki Bin Abdullah and a number of government officials who refused to make the large financial payments for their release. -

Al’hair prison

Among those arrested on allegations of corruption is Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, the Saudi King’s nephew who is worth more than $17bn according to Forbes, and owns stakes in Twitter, Lyft and Citigroup. According to a Daily Mail source, the crown prince had lulled Alwaleedinto a false sense of security, inviting him to a meeting at his Al Yamamah palace, then sent officers to arrest him the night before the meeting.

‘Suddenly at 2.45am all his guards were disarmed, the royal guards of MBS storm in,’ said the source.

‘He’s dragged from his own bedroom in his pajamas, handcuffed, put in the back of an SUV, and interrogated like a criminal.

‘They hung them upside down, just to send a message.

Purged princes and the like were taken to the Riydah Ritz Carlton Hotel, where they have reportedly been allowed to buy their freedom by giving up their billions in oil wealth for their lives.

Purged Royals inside Riydah Ritz Carlton

As the Daily Mail reported in November, mercenaries purportedly employed by Academi – a successor to infamous US security contractor Blackwater, have been stringing up some of MBS’s “guests” at the Riyadh Ritz Carlton by their feet and savagely beating them during interrogations. The claims have spread rapidly on Arabic-language social media, and even Lebanon’s president Michel Aoun has accused MbS of using mercenaries.

Meanwhile, none of Prince Alwaleed’s powerful friends appear to be coming to his defense. As CNBC points out:

One of the most stunning aspects of bin Talal’s detention is how quiet his long list of influential friends have been about it. This week brought at least some mention of his plight with a statement from two former French presidents who expressed concern over Alwaleed’s status. But let’s face it: a few words from a couple of French ex-presidents is peanuts.

So now we have bin Alwaleed in an actual prison, with a government aggressively taking cash and assets, and still no significant outcry from his foreign friends.

Read More @ ZeroHedge.com