Watchdogs, however, scoffed at the meeting’s results, noting that full cooperation will be purely voluntary. A country can block the outside inspections and offer its own self-audit instead, without any repercussions under the convention. It might be worse than having no treaty at all, reported the Economist :
In many ways, says Robert Palmer of Global Witness, an NGO, a toothless treaty is worse than none. Politicians can point to their signatures as evidence of virtue, and continue to steal unimpeded.
Eastern European Hackers Charged
A group of hackers from parts east were charged last week over a coordinated attack last year that stole $9 million from 2,100 ATMs in more than 280 cities worldwide. The defendants are Russian, Estonian and Moldovan nationals. Four of the defendants allegedly got access to account numbers for cards employees of RBS WorldPay used to withdraw their paychecks from ATMs; the defendants then allegedly made fake debit cards to withdraw the money over a period of 12 hours last November. It was “perhaps the most sophisticated and organized computer fraud attack every conducted,” according to the US attorney on the case. Four of the defendants will face up to 20 years if convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Also last week, two Romanians pleaded guilty to stealing debit card information from Washington Mutual customers by using skimmers attached to ATMs in the Atlanta, Georgia area.
Would-be Priests Pay for the Honor?
A few stragglers from last week’s coverage of the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall falling: A look at Bulgaria 20 years on, and a radio segment on how literally nothing is sacred when it comes to corruption in post-communist Romania.
In one recent, high-profile case, Razvan Chiruta, a reporter with Romania Libera newspaper, and a colleague went undercover as prospective priests. They videotaped Archbishop Theodosius of Constanta, one of the highest officials in the Romanian Orthodox Church, allegedly agreeing to sell them positions in the priesthood. Chiruta says they were told to pay $4,500, but it can go up to nearly $75,000 depending on where you are.
"It depends where you become a priest. If you become a priest in the countryside, it's cheaper," he says.
Despite the video evidence, the archbishop remains in his post. He denies the charges. Romanian prosecutors and church officials say they are investigating.
That beyond-the-pale tidbit may be specific to Romania, but the story’s explanation for the country’s pervasive corruption sounds familiar to the region as a whole. Says an anti-corruption campaigner:
"We're still in the communist mentality, where stealing from the state is good, as much as you can because it was a totalitarian regime and people try to find ways to live better. But I think 20 years after the revolution, maybe [the time has come] for a mentality change," she says.
Serbia Cracks Down on OC
Another transition country missed the 1989 boat entirely, and didn’t see changes until fairly recently. Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic wasn’t deposed until 11 years after the Berlin Wall fell. The government that replaced him was in bed with the same gangsters and sanctions-busters that had aided and abetted Milosevic. Organized crime was for years the backbone of the state; it’s only fairly recently that the Serbian authorities have moved to fight it.Â
Last week was a banner one in that regard. On Tuesday the police arrested 10 people suspected of trafficking in drugs, arms and people. Later in the week police arrested a group of alleged fraudsters. On Wednesday a Belgrade court sentenced 41 members of the so-called Road Mafia to a total of nearly 132 years in prison. The defendants had siphoned €6.5 million from road toll booths under the leadership of a man working for the state road company’s internal control department. On Thursday police arrested four members of a group that allegedly stole cars in Serbia and sold them in Montenegro. (The ubiquity of stolen cars in Montenegro over the years has prompted a joke that’s become cliché: “Welcome to Montenegro – your car is already here.”) Another cliché perpetrated by the gang involved a relatively common extortion tactic – stealing a car and then telling the owner to pay up if he wants his car back.
Meanwhile, the European Parliament last week voted to recommend to the EU that it no longer require visas for citizens of Serbia (and Montenegro and Macedonia) after next month. The EU had told Serbia one of the things it needed to do to end the visa regime was fight organized crime; officials must be impressed by the steps Serbia’s taken in the past year.
Some less jaded than I am might argue that Serbia’s steps against organized crime are coming to bear precisely because of EU pressure or carrot-dangling. But, to me, correlation does not imply causation. You could instead note that the people who are running Serbia would like to continue to run Serbia, because running a country is the best way to get privileges for yourself, your friends and your family. Convincing the public that the gangster days are waning and throwing the public the bone of visa-free travel are both excellent platforms on which to run a re-election campaign. (And any EU money that comes in because of these policies is gravy that can be ladled out to associates who run construction companies or otherwise traded for favors.) Or you could note that the leaders may be focusing on small- and medium-time crooks and leaving the influential big ones alone. Or you could take the extra-cynical view and say the leaders are taking out the competition so they and their friends can run the rackets themselves.
At any rate, the mess stems from the merging of war crimes and organized crime in the 1990s. Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic said last week that war crimes and organized crime are “two faces of the same freak.”
"The Balkans is a hub of war profiteers, arms runners, drug smugglers, who used that wealth to build gas stations and other facilities that have permanent value, while they were demolishing churches and mosques and destroying the most sacred thing - human life," said prosecutor, who
attended an international summit against transnational crime in Paris.
"The same people keep showing up and the same groups keep overlapping. There is hardly a war crime committed without a robbery. There is hardly an individual from the world of transnational organized crime who is not somehow linked to war crimes," Vukcevic said.
Russia Admits Police Corruption
Russia admitted last week that parts of its police force are involved in corruption and have turned into criminal businesses, reported the BBC. The unprecedented statement came after a police major in southern Russia posted two videos to YouTube in which he said he was tired of framing suspects to improve crime statistics. Major Alexei Dymovsky said:
"I will turn the entire life of cops throughout Russia inside out," he vowed, promising to show how the force was riddled with corruption and how honest officers lost their lives because of their "stupid" bosses.
Accusing his local police chief of corruption, Mr Dymovsky alleged he had been promoted to major in exchange for promising to jail an innocent person, a promise he said he was unable to keep.
Looking tired and apparently on the verge of tears at times, Mr Dymovsky asked Mr Putin to sanction an independent investigation into the state of the police force across Russia and suggested he lead the probe. He also asked Mr Putin for a face-to-face meeting.
Dymovsky’s videos were popular, getting more than 700,000 hits according to some accounts. The videos did not please his bosses in Novorossiysk, however, who fired him and threatened to sue him for slander. But higher up, Russia’s interior minister pledged to fight the “chaos and indecency” of some of the police. Three other policemen have since posted their own, similar, videos, reported AP, which also reported that maybe the videos shouldn’t be taken at face value:Â
But in the case of the YouTube cops, things may not be as simple as they seem: The unusual burst of whistle-blowing follows pledges from the Kremlin to clean up Russia's notoriously corrupt police force — and some suspect the Internet campaign may even have sprung from within the halls of power.
…
"The whole story looks very much like a work of police PR," political analyst Alexei Mukhin told the Gazeta.ru online daily. "Dymovsky does not say anything new, but the Interior Ministry responds immediately, orders investigations, and nobody cares about how they will end."
