This week, the former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has been charged with fraud and witness tampering by Colombian prosecutors. According to a report by The Guardian, Uribe is facing allegations that he used right-wing paramilitary groups to target leftist rebels. Uribe is praised by many on the Colombian right wing for eradicating the threat of The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC). According to a report in The Washington Post, Uribe retains a large amount of political capital in that he has helped elect two successors into the office of president. Uribe has faced legal issues for the last decade so that I wouldn’t expect a swift conclusion to this trial.
Category: Corruption
Peru Embroiled in “Rolexgate” Corruption Scandal.
Last Week, Peru was embroiled in another political corruption scandal. Known as “Rolexgate,” According to a report in The Guardian, it emerged that President Dina Boluarte, who came into office on an anti-corruption platform, had amassed a collection of jewelry, including several Rolex watches valued at $500,000. Boluarte’s presidential salary is listed at only $3,000 a month, so how exactly she amassed such a valuable collection is anyone’s guess. According to a report in Le Monde, Peruvian prosecutors have charged Boluarte with illicit enrichment and failure to disclose assets. Boluarte’s defense is ever-shifting. Firstly, she claimed the Rolexes were the “fruit of my labor,” stating that she had worked since she was 18 years of age; then she said that she accepted the watches as a loan from a provincial governor, which the governor almost certainly would have asked for something in return. No matter what her explanation is, the whole affair seems dodgy.
Russian journalist Connected to Navalny Detained.
Last Friday, a Russian journalist who filmed the last video of Alexi Navalny was detained in Moscow, and according to a report by The Guardian, Russian authorities accused Antonia Forskaya of being part of an “Extremist Organization” which the Russian government uses to refer to Navalny’s organization. According to an article in the AP, she is accused of producing and editing videos for Navalny’s organization. In an even more worrying development, two other journalists, Alexandra Astakhova and Anastasia Musatova, were detained simply for going to visit Forskaya while she was imprisoned. Given recent events, I fear for Forskaya and all of the other brave Russian journalists, both inside and outside of the country, who are exposing the corruption embedded within Putin’s regime.
SBF Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison.
Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison, capping a swift fall from grace after being found guilty of fraud and money laundering charges. Federal prosecutors had been aiming for a much higher sentence, arguing that the nature of his crimes meant that he should spend most of the rest of his life behind bars. According to a report by the New York Times, SBF will also have to forfeit $11.4 billion in assets and will most likely be sent to a low or medium-security prison near his parent’s home in San Francisco. According to a report by the AP, SBF will not serve his sentence in a maximum security prison due to his autism, and his public persona would make him a target in prison. Despite the collapse of FTX and the downfall of SBF, I still believe that the Cryptocurrency industry has a long way to go to establish any form of trust that people’s investments can be handled securely.
Opposition Leader in India Arrested on Corruption Charges.
Last Thursday, the chief minister of the Union territory of Delhi (a type of administrative district not unlike a state in India), Arvind Kejriwal, the leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), was arrested on corruption charges. According to a report in the BBC, the charges center on a policy related to allowing alcohol to be sold by private individuals; before that, all liquor sold in Delhi was sold by the state government. According to an article by the LA Times, leaders of other opposition parties in India have accused the government of Narendra Modi of stifling their ability to campaign for the upcoming election on April 19th. On Friday, a large group of AAP supporters were detained after protesting Kejriwal’s arrest. It is unclear what will happen in the future, but this is an ominous sign for the future of democracy in India.
Update on Vietnam Corruption.
Vietnam’s President Vo Van Thuong resigned today after being caught up in a long-running corruption scandal. Vietnam has been in the middle of a wide-ranging Anti-Corruption drive for several years. According to the AP, Thoung was the second president in two years to resign from his post, which, for a country striving to be more democratic, is not a good look. This comes shortly after an ally of Thoung, the governor of the central Vietnamese province Quang Ngai, resigned from his post due to allegations of corruption. While this anti-corruption campaign shows no signs of stopping anytime soon, concerns about political stability will grow if more Vietnamese politicians get arrested.
Corruption in the Comoros Islands: The Passport Scandal.
Disclaimer: I met a gentleman from Comoros in my local coffee shop on Friday who suggested I look into corruption there.)
Twelve years ago, Comoros Islands, a small chain of islands off the Southeastern coast of Africa, started a scheme to allow stateless persons from the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait to buy Comoros citizenship. According to a report in Reuters, there are immediate concerns about where and what the profits of the sold passport were going towards. There were also concerns about how the promised development projects the UAE and Kuwait pledged to would come to fruition. According to a report in November of 2022 by Al Jazeera, the president at the time, Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, was sentenced to life in prison for crimes of “high treason” after it was found that he embezzled $1.8 billion in government profits from the scheme. Sadly, like many other African leaders, Sambi wanted to enrich himself and his immediate circle with the proceeds of a scheme that seemed dodgy straight from the off.
Corruption Scandal Rocks Portuguese Election.
This Sunday, Portugal goes to the polls in a pivotal election. According to a report in The Washington Post, both parties in the governing coalition, the social democratic party and the socialist party, have been rocked by numerous corruption scandals. In particular, 75 thousand euros were found in brown envelopes in a bookcase in the Prime Minister’s office last year. There is a real chance that like in other parts of Europe in recent years, the far-right wing could be elected due to the ongoing corruption scandal. The AP reports that the Chega (Enough) party could play kingmakers in specific election scenarios. This scandal has a comedic element in that Ikea had a billboard showing a bookcase with the tagline “A good place to stash books Or 75,800 Euros.”
Menedez Associate Pleads Guilty on Bribery Charges.
On Friday, a New Jersey businessman, Joe Uribe, pleaded guilty to seven charges, including bribery, wire fraud, and obstruction of justice. According to a report by the Washington Post, Uribe conspired with several other people to gift Menendez’s wife Nadine a Mercedes Benz in return for Menendez attempting to quash several ongoing investigations related to a business partner of Uribe’s. Also, according to a report by the AP, Uribe was hoping that the gift of the car would stop an inquiry regarding a family member of Uribe. Uribe could face up to 95 years in prison unless he testifies against other defendants in the Menendez trial. If Uribe has any sense, he will turn state’s evidence on his associates to lessen his time behind bars.
LaPierre Found Liable in NRA Corruption Case.
On Friday, Wayne LaPierre was liable for misusing funds while he was the head of the National Rifle Association (NRA). According to a report by the New York Times, a jury found that LaPierre had used NRA funds for personal use, such as expensive vacations abroad for himself and relatives and expensive clothes for himself. According to a report by the Hill, Lapierre has to pay $4.3 million in damages to the state of New York. According to a report by NPR, The NRA’s former Chief Financial Officer, Wilson “Woody” Phillips, has to pay $2 Million in damages to the state of New York as well. This further highlights just how far the NRA has fallen, mainly as it used to be a heavyweight in Republican fundraising circles.
Crispin Corruption Report 