🇲🇺 FCC pushes to prosecute former SBM chief over a Rs 470 million loan

FCC pushes to prosecute former SBM chief over a Rs 470 million loan

Premchand Mungur once ran the State Bank of Mauritius (SBM), one of the island's biggest banks and a lender the state ultimately controls. Now the Financial Crimes Commission (FCC), the agency that investigates financial and white-collar crime, wants him prosecuted over a single loan of Rs 470 million it calls toxic.

That money went to one borrower, Dhyanavartam Ltd. A toxic loan is one that curdles, credit unlikely to be repaid and a hole left in the books. The FCC's case is that the approval broke the bank's own rules, and it points to fraud and criminal conspiracy in how the deal was waved through.

The commission has handed the file to the parquet, the state prosecutor's office, which now decides whether Mungur stands trial. A recommendation is not a charge. A charge is not a conviction. Rs 470 million, though, is real money at a bank the public stands behind, and the clock is now on the prosecutors.

A recommendation to prosecute has a way of ageing quietly in a drawer.

Trafficking probe leads police to a suspected brothel in Trou-aux-Biches

A Central Criminal Investigation Department (CCID) operation on Wednesday moved into a villa on the coast road at Trou-aux-Biches. What began as a human trafficking inquiry turned up what officers describe as a suspected house of prostitution.

Officers spent hours at the seaside property gathering evidence, the trafficking angle is what lifts this above an ordinary vice raid. It points to people moved and controlled, not simply a business run in the shadows.

Whether the villa stood alone or formed one link in a wider chain is what investigators must now pin down.

Supreme Court throws out Boolell's case over his 2021 suspension

The Supreme Court has dismissed the constitutional claim brought by Dr Arvin Boolell, now Minister of Agro-Industry, over his suspension from Parliament in July 2021.

Boolell said the expulsion, moved by former Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth and enforced by former Speaker Sooroojdev Phokeer, breached his rights. Judges Gunesh-Balaghee and Mootoo ruled the point moot. His later bid to sue the two men personally, they found, changed the case too fundamentally to allow.

731 knife cases in five years, 40 of them fatal

From early 2021 to this month, police logged 731 cases involving bladed weapons, with 697 people hurt and 40 killed. PM Ramgoolam gave the figures in Parliament, answering MP Farhad Aumeer. The law already allows up to ten years in jail, yet the blades keep coming out.

Building materials get pricier as the construction index climbs again

Construction just got dearer again. The construction price index rose 2.1% in the second quarter of 2026, driven by costlier materials. For anyone mid-build, or budgeting one, the sums keep shifting under their feet.

Shorts

Two held over the Pereybère home robbery – Police arrested two suspects, including an alleged receiver, over the violent raid on a teacher's home.

Bus burns out at the Gare du Nord – An individual bus caught fire at Port Louis's Gare du Nord on Thursday, with no injuries reported.

MBC staff take their exit worries to the PM – Employees have written to PM Ramgoolam over how broadcaster is handling its restructuring and departures.

M4 highway clears its first site visit – The Rs 10.8 billion M4 linking Forbach to Bel Air had its first ground visit, with works due this year.

Mauritius braces to double its foreign workforce – With 52,000 foreign workers already here, planners expect the number to double in coming years.

26th

is where the Mauritian passport now ranks on the 2026 Henley Passport Index, a three-place climb that clears 148 destinations without a prior visa.

$2.5 billion

Nigeria's Dangote refinery has pulled in that much from private backers to fund an expansion, stretching Africa's largest refinery toward east African fuel markets.

$95 billion

The US House signed off on that much for the Iran war and other Trump priorities, setting up a fight before the November midterms.

World's ICC members vote on whether Karim Khan keeps his job

Diplomats gather at the United Nations in New York on Friday to decide the future of Karim Khan, the embattled chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The oversight body can remove him for good.

Khan has faced pressure for months. A vote to oust the ICC's chief prosecutor would be first for the court, and it lands while the court is juggling some of its most sensitive cases in years.

Ebola deaths pass 1,000 in the DR Congo

Ebola has now killed more than 1,000 people in the DR Congo, the country's fastest outbreak yet, and MSF, the medical charity, warns the response is not keeping pace.

AFCON grows to 28 teams from 2027

Room for more? AFCON, African football's showpiece, will expand to 28 teams from 2027, when Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda share the hosting.

Oil punches through $100 a barrel as the Middle East burns

Crude oil hit $100 a barrel, a level it has not touched in a long while, as the widening Middle East conflict and attacks in the Red Sea rattle traders. Every extra dollar in the barrel eventually reaches a Mauritian pump.

For an island that imports its fuel, the price of crude is no abstraction. It feeds the cost of transport, electricity and, before long, the weekly shop.

When crude moves this hard, the grocery bill usually follows within weeks.

EU agrees a 21st round of sanctions on Russia

The European Union has agreed a 21st package of sanctions on Russia, freezing its oil price cap and widening bans on Russian banks and crypto firms.

Casemiro joins Inter Miami under a tampering cloud

Inter Miami have signed veteran midfielder Casemiro, but MLS, North America's top league, has opened a tampering probe over who held his discovery rights.

Washington says a Chinese lab swiped an American AI model

The White House has accused Moonshot AI, a Chinese firm, of stealing an Anthropic model and skirting US export controls, and it is dangling sanctions in response. Proving who copied what inside a neural network is famously slippery, which is part of why this fight will run and run.

🙏 Merci, à demain! 👋

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