After years of basking in impunity amid repeated
complaints of corruption, election fraud and malfeasance, the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) is finally being investigated
following the arrest of substitute de facto Magistrate Julio César Osuna, who faces charges of organized crime, drug
trafficking, money laundering and falsification of state documents.
The recent narco-scandal
that has rattled Nicaragua’s quaint self-image and cast an even darker shadow of doubt across the already lightless
Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), presents both an enormous challenge and a unique opportunity for the Sandinista administration.
With
an insufficient budget and an inadequate staff, the Comptroller General is charged with the daunting task of assuring transparency
and accountability in a government that isn’t too keen on either...
In order to the Comptroller
General’s Office to really do its job properly, Argüello says his office would need twice its current budget just to
keep up with the routine auditing of thousands of government entities that he is supposed to be keeping honest. But with inadequate funding,
Argüello’s office has to pick, choice and prioritize which rocks to look under, the chief auditor says. “The requirements
for my office are much more than the resources allow,” Argüello admits. The Comptroller General
says he asked President Daniel Ortega for a modest 10% budget increase for his office at the beginning of the year, but was
told “that’s impossible.”...
“There is no political will to investigate corruption,
so the Comptroller’s Office has become totally inoperative. They see corruption but don’t do anything about it,
and their only excuse is that they don’t have any budget,” says Luis Aragón, of Ethics and Transparency, the Nicaraguan
affiliate of Transparency International. “The comptrollers should resign in protest, if they are as honorable as they
claim to be.”
Aragón says the CGR was much more effective in the 1990s,
with the same amount of funding (in real terms) and only one comptroller general. Now the CGR has five comptrollers general
and is less productive than ever before, Aragón argues.
VIDEO: Transnational organized crime is a global
concern. Generating around US$ 870 billion a year, organized criminal networks profit from the sale of illegal goods wherever
there is a demand and represent a threat to peace, human security and prosperity.
On one hand, U.S. companies find Mexico to
be an attractive place to do business. The country is our neighbor. Its market is vast. NAFTA has intimately linked the two
economies such that Mexico represents the United States’s second largest export market and its third largest source
of imports. Mexico also feels familiar – Mexican culture has permeated the United States, and vice versa. But, in FCPA compliance, it is important not to let familiarity,
warm people, and great culture mask what might be happening behind thepantalla– the screens and illusions that can hide true decision-makers and bad actors.
Mexico is a high-risk corruption environment, one of the highest.
VIDEO:
Wall
Street And London Bankers Laundering Mexican Drug Money
Former Wachovia Bank Anti Money-Laundering Officer, Martin Woods, discusses how Wachovia, Bank
of America, and other large banking institutions sustain Mexican drug cartels. Woods left his position at Wachovia due
to negative responses from Wachovia officials to Woods’ investigations of Mexican cartel money laundering within the
institution.
The U.S. is responsible for much of the turmoil from
the Mexican drug wars. U.S. banks act as enablers for cartels by giving them a lucrative market to work with.
The laundering of Mexican drug profits within U.S. institutions is one of the main ways by which Mexican drug lords stay in
business. Lacks in oversight, accountability, and enforcement are the key pitfalls that must be ameliorated.
"The Sinaloa cartel can buy a kilo of cocaine in the highlands of Colombia or Peru for around
$2,000, then watch it accrue value as it makes its way to market. In Mexico, that kilo fetches more than $10,000. Jump the
border to the United States, and it could sell wholesale for $30,000. Break it down into grams to distribute retail, and that
same kilo sells for upward of $100,000 — more than its weight in gold. And that’s just cocaine. Alone among the
Mexican cartels, Sinaloa is both diversified and vertically integrated, producing and exporting marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine
as well...
In the sober reckoning of the RAND Corporation, for instance, the gross revenue that all
Mexican cartels derive from exporting drugs to the United States amounts to only $6.6 billion. By most estimates, though,
Sinaloa has achieved a market share of at least 40 percent and perhaps as much as 60 percent, which means that Chapo Guzmán’s
organization would appear to enjoy annual revenues of some $3 billion — comparable in terms of earnings to Netflix or,
for that matter, to Facebook...
The surest way
to stay out of trouble in the drug business is to dole out bribes, and promiscuously. Drug cartels don’t pay corporate
taxes, but a colossus like Sinaloa makes regular payments to the federal, state and municipal authorities that may well rival
the effective tax rate in Mexico. When the D.E.A. conducted an internal survey of its top 50 operatives and informants several
years ago and asked them to name the most important factor for running a drug business, they replied, overwhelmingly, corruption...
The cartel bribes mayors and prosecutors and governors,
state police and federal police, the army, the navy and a host of senior officials at the national level...
The tacit but unwavering tolerance that Mexican
authorities have shown for the drug trade over the years has muddled the boundaries between outlaws and officials...
When you tally it all up, bribery may be the single largest line item on a cartel’s balance
sheet. In 2008, President Felipe Calderón’s own drug czar, Noe Ramirez, wascharged with accepting $450,000 eachmonth. Presumably,
suchgargantuan bribes to senior officials cascade down, securing
the allegiance of their subordinates...
Guards at
the U.S. border have been known to wave a car through their checkpoints for a few thousand dollars, and since 2004, there
have been 138 convictions or indictments in corruption investigations involving members of the United States Customs and Border
Protection..."
This website is dedicated to providing a reference
source on the scourge that is whirling across planet Earth destroying governments, businesses, cities, families and imperiling civilized
culture by agregating and making available on one site sources of news, analysis and opinion about corruption.
Criteria for inclusion on this site of "BIG
Corruption" cases:
Very High level corporate and/or government official(s) involved;
Very Large amount of money lost;
International financing/aid agency program;
Global impact on numerous countries/businesses/investors; and/or
Classic example that can be used in training/seminarsmajor cases of global fraud and corruption.
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purposes in one single place news and information specifically pertinent to major global corruption in business and government.
The news items, views, editorials and opinions summarized or reported on this website are taken from the general media and
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