Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it was fining John Deere $10 million to resolve allegations that it breached the Foreign & Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). According to a report on a website called whistleblowersblog.org, Wirtgen Thailand, a subsidiary of John Deere, paid bribes to numerous Thai entities, including the Royal Thai Air Force and Department of Highways, to win government contracts. These bribes included but were not limited to cash payments, international travel, and visits to massage parlors. According to the SEC, when John Deere acquired Wirtgen Thailand, they failed to stop the bribery schemes from occurring. John Deere appears to be reaping what they have sown by failing to investigate their new acquisitions’ business practices.
Category: Financial Crime
Former European Investment Bank Head Facing Corruption Allegations.
Today, prosecutors for the European Union (EU) looking into financial crimes are investigating the former head of the European Investment Bank (EIB), Werner Hoyer. According to a report in Politico, the European Public Prosecutors Office (EPPO) is investigating Hoyer and another individual for allegations that they misappropriated EU funds and abused their power in office—police in Germany and Luxembourg, where the EIB have been working jointly on the investigation. According to a report in Euronews, the EIB has 250 billion Euros in capital that funds climate change projects and the future reconstruction of Ukraine. It is unclear what Hoyer’s future is, but the former head of the investment bank that serves the EU is never a good look.
Ex- Chicago Alderman Burke Facing ten years in Prison on Corruption Charges.
Prosecutors in Chicago recommended that former Alderman Ed Burke face ten years on corruption and bribery charges. According to a report in CBS, Burke pressured businesses, including a Burger King franchise, a liquor store called Binny’s Beverage Depot, and the Field Museum of Natural History, to use his private property tax law firm. According to a report by the local PBS affiliate, Burke’s lawyers (who were paid $4 million out of campaign funds) argued that at 80, Burke was just an older man who had dedicated his life to helping the good people of Chicago. I could just about believe that if it wasn’t for the fact that Burke has a net worth of $30 million. Sadly, it appears that democratic politics in Chicago haven’t changed very much over the years.
Vietnam Sentences Lan to Death Over Fraud.
Last Week, the Vietnamese real estate magnate Troung My Lan was sentenced to death after being found guilty in a massive financial fraud trial. Vietnam is a country that has been plagued by corruption, particularly in and around the COVID-19 pandemic. According to an AP report, Lan was illegally involved with the Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank and set up 2,500 loans, which caused the bank to lose $27 billion. Lan grew famous in Vietnam by founding the real estate firm Van Thinh Phat. The Ho Chi Minh City court leveled such a harsh sentence because Lan was at the head of a well-organized criminal network, and there was no chance of her repaying the court-ordered $26 million to the bank. According to Al Jazeera, her lawyers have 15 days to appeal the death sentence.
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.
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.
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.
Update on Singapore Corruption.
Last July, Singapore, a country not traditionally known as a hotbed for corruption, indicted their transport minister on corruption and bribery charges. Yesterday, Subramanian Iswaran formally resigned from his post. According to a report by Reuters, Iswaran allegedly took bribes from a Singaporean property magnate called Ong Beng Seng. Records show that in return for advancing Seng’s business interests, Iswaran received tickets to sporting events and musicals and flights on Seng’s private jet. This all comes as a major surprise because, according to Transparency International, Singapore is ranked in the top five of the least corrupt countries in the world, paying their cabinet ministers some of the highest salaries in the world. Iswaran’s fate is still unknown, but one has to assume that Singapore will use him as an example to future ministers of what happens when you take bribes.
Santos Announces That He Will Not Run for Re-election.
Today, representative George Santos has announced that he will not run for re-election after an ethics report ruled that Santos was involved in criminal schemes with the goal of personal financial enrichment. According to an article in the Washington Post, Santos has railed against the report, calling it a “disgusting politicized smear.” According to a report in the Guardian, the ethics committee found a clear pattern of behavior of fraud that emerged during Santos’s time in the house and that he should be removed one way or another. In recent weeks & months, the calls for Santos to be removed came from both sides of the aisle, with some Republicans publicly admitting that he had gone. Even though Santos will not run again for re-election, he still faces many legal issues.
SBF found Guilty in Fraud Trial.
After a two-week trial, Sam Bankman-Fried, better known as SBF, has been found guilty of fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy. Bankman-Fried was the former CEO of FTX and was heavily involved in the effective altruism movement. According to an article in Yahoo, SBF claimed numerous times that he had nothing to do with the alleged $8 billion fraud. However, it became apparent that his co-defendants, such as former girlfriend Caroline Ellison, testified that SBF directly told Ellison to move money from FTX accounts to prop up Alameda, a failing cryptocurrency hedge fund closely linked to FTX and run by Ellison. According to CBS, SBF also used some of the stolen money to buy expensive real estate and fund political campaigns and charitable projects.
The big question is what comes next for both SBF and the crypto industry, at least. According to an article by NASDAQ, SBF will very likely spend the rest of his life in prison, which will hopefully set an example to anyone else thinking about enriching themselves through crypto. As for the FTX users affected by the scam, they should be able to recoup at least 90 percent of their losses after a bankruptcy settlement agreed last December. SBF may also have to pay his victim restitution at his sentencing. What happened to FTX will hopefully encourage governments and other financial entities to tighten the regulations around cryptocurrency and ensure that something on this scale never happens again.
Crispin Corruption Report 