And how has the OIOS done? According to the AP, the scorecard isn’t good:
Over the past year, not a single significant fraud or corruption case has been completed, compared with an average 150 cases a year investigated by the task force. The permanent investigation division decided not to even pursue about 95 cases left over when the task force ceased operation, while another 80 unfinished cases have languished.
It also stopped probes into contractors and cut qualified staff and other resources - and halted five major corruption investigations documented by the task force in the final days of 2008.
One of the major cases dropped by the agency involved investigators finding evidence of corruption in more than $200 million worth of UN peacekeeping transportation contracts throughout Africa. (Many of the companies involved, according to the AP, were Russian.) And still under review is a case in which investigators found more than $1 million per day disappearing from a UN office safe in Kabul. The report detailing the findings came out more than one year ago, and to date nothing has come of that report.
Given the large dollar amounts – AP reported that these and other dropped cases involved the possible theft or misuse of millions of dollars – why is the UN slowing or ending these investigations? The AP reports that the UN General Assembly put the kibosh on the original task force by refusing to fund it. Russia and Singapore apparently also complained when investigators named their citizens and/or companies as possible perpetrators of various frauds and corruption.
The UN, meanwhile, told the AP that their commitment to rooting out malfeasance had not diminished.
Israel: Uzbek-born man held on money laundering charges.
Also internationally last week, papers reported that Uzbek-born Israeli businessman Michael Cherney probably won’t be leaving Israel for the foreseeable future, as Interpol has issued an arrest warrant for him. He’s wanted in Spain for money laundering and transnational organized crime for his alleged involvement with laundering €4 million for the Russian mafia. The warrant may mean that Cherney won’t be able to appear at his London civil trial against Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, whom Cherney is suing over a 20 percent stake in Deripaska’s United Company RusAl.
Bulgaria releases murder suspect
A Bulgarian court released its prime suspect for the Jan. 5 murder of author/radio host/fraudster Bobi Tsankov on Sunday. Krasimir Marinov, known as “The Big Margin,” was charged with leading an organized crime group that allegedly masterminded the plot that led to two gunmen shooting Tsankov dead in broad daylight in the capital Sofia. Marinov was reportedly released on bail; none of the English-language media, however, reported the amount of bail Marinov posted.
The court denied bail to another suspect, Stefan Bonev, who was charged along with Marinov with participating in an organized crime ring and drug distribution. Police are still seeking Marinov’s younger brother Nikolai. Officials don’t yet know the names of the actual shooters.
Bulgarian media reported last week that the motive for Tsankov’s murder stemmed from Tsankov’s attempts to make deals with prosecutors so that he himself wouldn’t have to go to jail for his own crimes.
On January 9, Bulgarian-language mass-circulation daily 24 Chassa quoted Sofia city prosecutor Nikolai Kokinov as saying that he had spoken on several occasions with Tsankov, and Tsankov had offered to provide information about people involved in organised crime.
Kokinov was quoted as suggesting that Tsankov probably wanted to be helpful because of several outstanding prosecutions against him. On January 8, it emerged that court records showed that Tsankov had 12 convictions for fraud, with another outstanding at the time of his death, for distribution of illegal software.
FT: Croatia has its work cut out for it
In just a few weeks, Croatia will inaugurate president-elect Ivo Josipovic, who’s hoping he’ll be able to help stabilize the fractious Balkan region. But he and other government officials have a lot to do in the crime and corruption arena as well, according to the Financial Times. The newspaper gives the country passing marks for the clean-up started after a car bombing killed a prominent newspaper editor in 2008, but notes the government shouldn’t shy away from cases involving heavy-duty political corruption.
A slew of new police and justice appointments, tough new laws and a string of high-profile investigations has finally destroyed the myth that nothing much could be done about Balkan corruption. An ex-defence minister has been indicted in a bribery case; an ex-deputy prime minister is being investigated over alleged illegal share-buying.
But there is further to go. Croatia must bring investigations to court and punish the guilty. With key probes drilling deep into the ruling HDZ party, the government must ensure the pursuit of justice is not blocked by political interference. Jadranka Kosor, the prime minister who took office last year after the surprise resignation of her veteran predecessor, Ivo Sanader, seems determined to succeed. But the conservative HDZ’s old guard, with members happy to combine politics with profit, will not, even now, roll over.
And the FT says the EU can help, because it can require Croatia to make reforms before it joins the 27-nation bloc. After the country joins the Union, the EU doesn’t have any more leverage, notes the paper, citing the examples of corrupt member countries Bulgaria, Romania and Greece.
Italy: Police arrest mob suspects over race riots
Italian police arrested 12 ‘Ndrangheta clan suspects in southern Italy last week, saying that breaking up the clan was the best way to deal with organized crime’s exploitation of African immigrants. (African immigrants in Rosarno – a town in the toe of Italy’s boot – burned cars, threw rocks and smashed shop windows in two days of rioting earlier this month, after white teenagers shot at two Africans with pellet guns.)
Interior Minister Roberto Maroni used the arrests to head off criticism of his handling of the violence, in which more than 50 people were injured in clashes between locals and African immigrants.
"This is the best answer we could give," Maroni told parliament. "It is the proof that the state is present in Calabria and will not let up in hunting down the 'Ndrangheta."
Time reported that the 2,000 or so African migrants in that part of Italy are managed by a mob-run employment system that pays migrants $3 per hour to work 10-14 hours per day picking citrus.
They live in tents or shacks pitched inside abandoned buildings, without appliances, plumbing or health care. Italian society supports the system by keeping the immigrants on its margins. Services are few and far between, mainly provided by religious organizations. Non-Italian police are rarely seen, and only one nonwhite serves in Parliament. Many immigrants simply do not report crimes against them. Disappearances are frequent — the Polish government is still looking for more than 100 Polish migrants who vanished from the tomato farms of Puglia in 2006, some of whom are believed to have been killed.
One theory behind the violent riots is that EU agriculture subsidies have made migrant workers less necessary to the ‘Ndrangheta. The New York Times reported:
Many authorities say that in a town where the ’Ndrangheta is strong, the presence of the immigrant workers must have been welcome, or at least convenient. They note that agriculture is not profitable if transportation and labor costs are high and producers pay about 75 cents for a carton of fruit.
In any case, most agricultural outfits may have Italians on the official rolls, but they pay migrant workers under the table to harvest the fruit — if it is harvested. For years state authorities have not cracked down on the arrangement.
Calabria, like other southern Italian regions rich in agriculture, has long benefited from hefty European Union agricultural subsidies. To prevent fraud in which small acreage yielded puzzlingly large harvests, in 2007 the European Union changed its rules to base subsidies on the number of hectares planted rather than the tons produced.
The result, some authorities hypothesize, is that it may be more lucrative for some Calabrian landowners to let their harvests rot on the tree and collect the subsidies than to pay pickers. In theory, the migrants may have become less useful and, possibly, less tolerated.
