High Tide: From Playing Defense On Wikileaks To An ‘Amnesty’ Offer
By Samuel Rubenfeld
Cables continue to reveal corruption-related news: Boeing Co. rejected advances from third-party negotiators to help them sell jets to world leaders. A team of 15 to 20 officials at Bank of America are scouring for documents that could potentially reveal whether a breach was committed that may result in a Wikileaks trove. The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor confirmed reports that his office told diplomats about the evidence of accusations against Sudan’s president, who allegedly skimmed as much as $9 billion from the country and stashed it in foreign bank accounts. Some of Bulgaria’s most popular soccer teams have ties with mafia bosses, who use them to launder money. Afghan President Hamid Karzai rejected a request by U.S officials to remove a former warlord from atop the energy and water ministry a year ago because they considered him corrupt and ineffective, and threatened to end aid unless he went. (NY Times, NY Times, NY Times, Bangkok Post, AP)
Bribery:
Paying bribes has become a way of life for many ordinary Syrians. (BBC)
The FCPA Blog released its 2010 enforcement index.
Opposition party officials in the Australian government attacked two top executives of the company rolling out Australia’s national broadband network for not taking responsibility for the international corruption scand at Alcatel, where one was a board member and the other an executive at the subsidiary at the center of the scandal. A statement from the national broadband company said the actions of those involved in the scandal were outside the two executives’ jurisdiction. (Sydney Morning Herald)
Lessons from the Alcatel case. (Malaysia Kini)
India’s Central Bureau of Investigation filed bribery charges against a postmaster general nearly 10 months after arresting him. He doesn’t appear to have been contacted for comment. (Indian Express)
Algeria’s oil ministry vowed to tighten internal controls at state-owned Sonatrach, after a corruption scandal rocked the company early last year. (Dow Jones Newswires)
Money Laundering:
Compliance Building takes a look at the new Vatican Bank AML regulations.
Angola’s central bank will begin operating a financial information unit in the first quarter of 2011 tasked with fighting money laundering and the funding of terrorism. (Antimoneylaundering.us)
Documents unearthed by the St. Petersburg Times say, according to its report, that Florida Republican party head Jim Greer used a shell company called Victory Strategies to funnel money back to himself. Greer was arrested in June 2010 and charged with six felony counts of theft, money laundering and orchestrating a scheme to defraud. He released an aggressive statement in response to the report, saying he looks forward to the “the truth coming out and addressing the false accusations.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is sending 52 more agents to Afghanistan to fight smuggling, an effort due in part to billions of dollars leaving the country every year. (NY Times)
Pakistan’s central bank has tightened regulations for micro-finance banks by increasing checks against money laundering and terrorism financing. (The News International)
The monetary board of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas decided to update all of its rules on money laundering instead of consolidating AML regulations. (Manila Bulletin Publishing Corporation)
Sanctions:
African leaders will try once again to convince Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo to step aside, and several African nations are willing to offer him amnesty if he does. (Wall Street Journal, BBC)
Central bank officials from India and Iran were due to meet on Friday to try to keep their oil trade running, after New Delhi banned Tehran from using a major clearinghouse in a bid to comply with international embargoes. (Reuters)
Whistleblowers:
The informant who revealed the tainted medicine being produced by GlaxoSmithKline gave her first TV interview to CBS News’ “60 Minutes.”
Terrorism Finance:
Mali is trying to stop Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb from forming a presence in the country. (NY Times)
General Anti-Corruption:
Corruption scandals continue to plague China’s Communist government despite an initiative to fight graft. (Washington Post)
FIFA’s president vowed to stamp out the corruption that plagued the voting for hosting the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. More here. (ESPN UK, Playthegame.org)
A senior Hero Group executive has been arrested for allegedly receiving a part of more than 3 billion rupees ($67 million) believed to have been misappropriated at a Citigroup Inc. bank branch on the outskirts of New Delhi. A spokesman for the company wasn’t immediately available for comment. (Dow Jones Newswires)
India will come out with a new telecommunications policy after a corruption scandal surrounding the sale of the 2G wireless spectrum rocked the agency. (Dow Jones Newswires)
Last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai appointed a close ally to lead the country’s new top anti-corruption agency. (Wall Street Journal)
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