Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which is chaired by its crown prince, is being used to facilitate and whitewash a wide range of human rights abuses, according to a new report.

The report, titled “The Man Who Bought the World: Rights Abuses Linked to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Its Chairman, Mohammad bin Salman”, was published on Wednesday by Human Rights Watch.

It found that the fund was effectively controlled by one person, Mohammed bin Salman, and was being used to enable mass rights violations including forced displacement, torture and the killing of a high-profile journalist.

Just months after becoming crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman used the wealth fund to tighten his grip on power, the report noted, during the Ritz-Carlton purge launched in November 2017.

In what was dubbed an “anti-corruption drive”, 200 powerful Saudi businesspeople, royals and senior officials were initially arrested and taken to the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh.

There they were detained, and some were abused, until they handed over proportions of their assets to the wealth fund.