Raymond Azar Crime and Conviction 0.1
aymond Azar was born into a Maronite family in the mostly Christian village of Jezzine in 1953. He is married to Jacqueline Azar and both have a daughter and a son. He studied to be a priest before joining the army. He was appointed to head the military intelligence of Lebanon in 1998 when Emile Lahoud was the elected president. He was at this post at the time of the assassination of the Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafic Hariri on 14th February 2005.
The Prime Minister of Lebanon was killed along with 21 others in an explosion in Beirut, Lebanon. Among the deceased were several Hariri's bodyguards and former Minister of the Economy, Bassel Fleihan. Later, a Special Tribunal was set up by the United Nations to investigate the matter.
After retirement, Raymond Azar founded a construction company—Sima Salazar Group—to help military forces deployed in the war-torn countries with the reconstruction of buildings and roads.
Raymond Azar is the president of Sima Salazar or SIMAINT and it has headquarters in Afghanistan. The company was awarded 150 million dollars' worth US contracts in about three-four years. But, it didn't complete any of the projects and faked the completion of the papers.
The wrongdoings of the company were exposed in 2009 when the special team of the United States orchestrated a global sting operation against corrupt contractors and illegal arms dealers. Raymond with the help of his executive, Dinorah Cobos and her sister, Gloria Martinez, a retired Army corps of Engineers, defrauded the US Army of multi-million dollars.
Sima Salazar disappeared soon after the fraud and all its branches were shut overnight. The company was sub-contracted under K5 Global and Bennet Fouch. These two companies are shell companies of a Lebanese illegal arms dealer, Tony Abi Saab. Raymond Azar and Tony Abi Saab share a strong bond, firstly because, they have a family connection. Raymond's wife is the blood sister of Tony Abi Saab's mother.
