NYC widow accuses Lebanese bank of stealing her familys $17.6 million fortune

“Corrupt” Lebanese banks stole $17.6 million from an Upper West Side widow and her three kids — and New York courts have refused to help them get their fortune back, she told The Post.Patricia Raad said her husband, Michel, immigrated to the US when he was 18 from their native Lebanon, and spent a lifetime working his way up as a businessman in the cosmetics and perfume industry.For 30 years until his death of cancer in 2009 at age 69, he sent the fruits of his labor — millions of dollars put in a trust for his kids — to Lebanon-based Bank Audi.Nine years after his death, when the trusts matured and were ready to be accessed, Patricia told Bank Audi she planned to transfer the millions to New York.But a Bank Audi manager allegedly begged her not to move the dough and then ignored agreements to deliver the funds, she said in a Manhattan Federal Court lawsuit.The bank manager “started begging and pleading, saying, ‘Please don’t do that, it will look bad on me,'” Raad, 70, recalled.

“They betrayed me.”Raad claims she signed agreements with Bank Audi managers in Lebanon to transfer the money in separate installments of about $2 to $3 million to herself, son and daughter — and paid taxes in America on the full amount while waiting.But Bank Audi never transferred a dime, she said in court papers.Lebanon spiraled into a crippling 2019 financial meltdown the World Bank later described as a “Ponzi scheme,” which encouraged money to flow in while failing to pay for public services or safeguarding depositers such as Raad.

In 2022 it was reported that more than $100 billion in deposits were stuck in Lebanon’s banking system, with that nation’s financial institutions refusing to give people like Raad their cash.“There can be no genuine debate that $17,623,674 of [Raad’s] money on deposit with Bank Audi is immediately due,” she said in the lawsuit, which accused the bank of “misappropriating” the money.But Raad has had little luck g...