In a landmark decision the Constitutional Court of Seychelles refused to dismiss a corruption case against one of the island nation’s most powerful individuals. The Court’s May 14 opinion rejected prominent businessman Mukesh Valabhji’s effort to dismantle the legal foundations of his prosecution.

The decision puts the lie to fears courts don’t have the spine to back prosecutors seeking to hold the wealthy and politically influential to account.

The case arose from what the Seychelles media dubbed the “missing $50 million” scandal. In 2002, the United Arab Emirates gave the Seychelles government $50 million to fund food imports and help overcome a balance-of-payment deficit. But the funds never reached the public purse. Instead, they were apparently siphoned into a UK bank account and later laundered back into Seychelles where they facilitated the corrupt privatization of state-owned hotels under the Compagnie Seychelloise de Promotion Hôtelière (COSPROH).

Defendant Valabhji was at the time the managing director of the Seychelles Marketing Board (SMB) and executive chairman of COSPROH. The prosecution alleges that Valabhji used the siphoned UAE funds to purchase the very hotels he was tasked with privatizing, effectively acquiring massive private assets using misappropriated public money. The Chief Justice of Seychelles aptly noted that these funds “should have ended in the coffers of the Government… and assist in our national development,” but instead “ended up back up in smoke”.

The Anticorruption Commission of Seychelles (ACCS) arrested Mukesh and his wife, Laura Valabhji, and the investigation quickly expanded, leading to the arrest of several high-profile figures, including Sarah Zarqani Rene, the widow of the late President France Albert Rene, and former senior government ministers. The discovery of a massive cache of weapons—including 72 guns and over 43,000 bullets— prompted additional charges of terrorism and illegal arms possession.