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Greetings From Amsterdam,
Soliciting or accepting bribes from foreign officials has long been outlawed in the United States — if you’re a U.S. citizen. The foreign officials themselves were exempt from prosecution. That changed in December 2023, when the U.S. Congress passed the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA). The law allows authorities for the first time to charge foreign officials who engage in bribery with American residents, a U.S. company, or within a U.S. jurisdiction.
"It is arguably the most sweeping and consequential foreign bribery law in nearly half a century,” said Scott Greytak, Director of Advocacy for Transparency International U.S.
Now, here's the latest in global crime and corruption:
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🇷🇺 IStories: Our Russian member center reports that the notorious drug dealer Dmitry Karavaichik — nicknamed the “Russian Walter White” after the protagonist in the American TV series Breaking Bad — is now the deputy head of a prominent NGO in the Leningrad region. Karavaichik was sentenced to 17 years in prison in 2018 for trafficking amphetamines. But Russian President Vladimir Putin pardoned him due to his service with the Wagner Group, a mercenary outfit that has fought in conflicts around the world, including Ukraine.
🇷🇸 CINS: In case you missed it, a journalist from our Serbian member center spoke with France24 about her investigation into a call center that encouraged votes for the ruling Serbian Progressive Party in recent elections. The call center was not listed in the party’s campaign finance disclosures, which raised questions about its legality and where the funds came from.
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🇺🇸 United States: The city council of San Jose, a city in Silicon Valley, passed a law prohibiting “foreign-influenced companies” from making political contributions. Federal and state law allows foreign firms with domestic subsidiaries to make campaign donations as long as they’re made by a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. Under the new law, nearly every member of the S&P 500 is prohibited from making political donations in San Jose elections.
🇨🇳 China: In the fall of 2023, President Xi Jinping launched a sweeping corruption probe into the military that resulted in the ouster of several senior officials. U.S. intelligence reports indicate that the purge came after Xi learned that widespread graft had hindered his ambitions to modernize the country’s fighting force.
🇳🇬 Nigeria: President Bola Tinubu has suspended one of his ministers following reports that she redirected roughly $663,000 in grant money allocated for social welfare programs into a private bank account.
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Join the fight against corruption.
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🇺🇸 Creatives Get Crash Course in AML Law: The U.S. has finally implemented the Corporate Transparency Act, an anti-money laundering law passed in 2021 that requires all companies in the country to disclose their “ultimate beneficial owners.” In this op-ed, a tax consultant warns self-employed artists that this law also applies to their small companies, not just large corporations.
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Not familiar with UBO? Companies are often owned on paper by other firms based in secretive jurisdictions, thus obscuring the true owners who ultimately benefit from the profits. This layer of corporate anonymity is removed once you require a company to disclose its “ultimate beneficial owners.”
While the Corporate Transparency Act gives UBO data to federal law enforcement, the law does not make it available to the public. OCCRP has argued that true accountability depends on making such information public.
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🇪🇨 Ecuador: President Daniel Noboa has declared the country to be in a “state of war” with transnational drug cartels. In response to the government’s crackdown on their activities, gang members have rioted in prison, set off explosions in public places, and waged attacks that have resulted in the deaths of over a dozen people.
🇨🇦 Canada: Canada lacks an effective federal strategy to control its massive border –– much of which is unguarded. This has turned the country into a prime target for transnational organized crime groups, according to a report from the International Coalition Against Illicit Economies (ICAIE), a national security NGO based in Washington D.C.
🇬🇳 Guinea: The country’s justice minister has ordered legal action against four government officials accused of illegally exporting hundreds of containers of rosewood to China, where timber from the critically endangered tree is in high demand.
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✨ Golden Globes: OCCRP was one of the winners of the Golden Globe Foundation’s Awards, which support cultural, educational, artistic, and humanitarian organizations.
✨ NarcoFiles: Our series into modern day organized crime was selected by the Global Investigative Journalism Network as one of 2023’s best investigations to come out of the Spanish-speaking world.
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P.S. Thank you for reading the OCCRP newsletter. Feel free to reply with any feedback.
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