Category: corporate corruption

European investigators have shut down an encrypted communication service that was used as a secure channel for organized crime, particularly in the drug trade, and arrested 48 people, German authorities said Monday. More than 70 properties were searched in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Poland on Friday, when the arrests were made, the criminal police office in the western German…

More than 27 months since it was greenlighted by Congress, the panel established to investigate the inner workings of the U.S. Olympic structure has yet to conduct a formal interview because of bureaucratic red tape and slow action from the same lawmakers who had expressed a pressing need for better oversight. Two Olympics — the Summer Games in Tokyo and…

An NGO boss who was among four suspects held in pre-trial detention as part of a Belgian probe into alleged bribery in the European Parliament linked to Morocco and Qatar has been released. Niccolo Figa-Talamanca, an Italian who led the “No Peace Without Justice” NGO before being stripped of his position after his arrest in December, was ordered freed on…

  U.S. Department of Justice FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, February 3, 2023 Food and ingredient manufacturing company Kerry Inc. pleaded guilty today to a charge that it manufactured breakfast cereal under insanitary conditions at a facility in Gridley, Illinois, that was linked to a 2018 salmonellosis outbreak. Pursuant to a plea agreement filed with a criminal information in federal court…

Olympic bronze medalist Rosey Fletcher is among three former U.S. snowboarders suing their ex-coach, the U.S. Ski & Snowboard federation, and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee alleging sexual abuse that they say the organizations covered up, court documents showed. Fletcher, a 2006 Olympic bronze medalist, Erin O’Malley and Callan Chythlook-Sifsof sued former coach Peter Foley and the sports bodies…

On February 1, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it entered into a proposed order with GoodRx, a telehealth and prescription drug discount provider, for violations of the FTC’s Health Breach Notification Rule stemming from GoodRx’s unauthorized disclosures of consumers’ personal health information to third party advertisers and other companies. This is the first enforcement action taken under the…

A former Arkansas State Senator was sentenced today to 46 months in prison in the Eastern District of Arkansas for accepting multiple bribes and tax fraud in connection with a multi-district investigation spanning the Eastern and Western Districts of Arkansas and the Western District of Missouri. According to court documents, from 2010 through 2017, Hutchinson stole and misappropriated thousands of dollars in state campaign contributions for his own personal use and then filed false federal income tax returns from 2011 to 2014 to conceal his conduct. In addition, Hutchinson was hired as outside counsel by Dr. Benjamin Burris, an orthodontist who owned and operated orthodontic clinics throughout the state of Arkansas. In exchange for payments and legal work, Hutchinson pushed legislation beneficial to Burris. Hutchinson was provided legal work to conceal the corrupt nature of his arrangement. Hutchinson stole over $10,000 in state campaign funds for his own personal use and also falsified his 2011 tax returns, including failing to report $20,000-per-month-payments he received from one law firm and other sources of income he knowingly and intentionally concealed from his taxes.

A Japanese company embroiled in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic corruption scandal said Thursday it would strengthen oversight to prevent further wrongdoing. Kadokawa “seriously betrayed public trust,” company president Takeshi Natsuno said. He bowed deeply with two other executives to show remorse in a news conference. Tsuguhiko Kadokawa, the son of the founder, was arrested in September on suspicion of bribing…

“Spanish authorities must conduct a full, fair, and effective investigation into these allegations, publish the findings and stop any unlawful interference into the fundamental rights of the Catalan minority activists in Spain,” they said in a statement. Top leaders arrested Following the October 2017 independence referendum, Spain arrested leaders of the Catalonian independence movement on charges of sedition. The alleged spying…

Co-hosts New Zealand and Australia said Thursday they “urgently” want answers from FIFA over reports Saudi Arabia’s tourist board will sponsor the 2023 Women’s World Cup. Visit Saudi is reportedly poised to be named among the sponsors of the 32-team soccer tournament to be held in New Zealand and Australia from July 20. The sponsorship deal looks set to go…

  The Federal Trade Commission has taken enforcement action for the first time under its Health Breach Notification Rule against the telehealth and prescription drug discount provider GoodRx Holdings Inc., for failing to notify consumers and others of its unauthorized disclosures of consumers’ personal health information to Facebook, Google, and other companies. In a first-of-its-kind proposed order, filed by the…

Three California companies have agreed to pay a total of $530,000 to settle allegations that they knowingly violated the False Claims Act when they received and retained more than one Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan prior to Dec. 31, 2020, in violation of PPP rules.

A former Jacksonville company CEO was sentenced yesterday to 32 months in prison for willfully attempting to evade the assessment of his federal income taxes. According to court documents and statements made in court, in 2015 and 2016, Jason Cory, 49, of Jacksonville, was a manager at a New York-based IT services company and from 2017 through 2019, he was the CEO of a different IT services company based in Jacksonville. From 2015 through 2018, Cory used his positions to cause more than $1.5 million to be deposited into the bank accounts of Gambit Matrix LLC, a shell company he controlled. As CEO, Cory caused transfers to Gambit Matrix under the false pretense that they were payments for consulting services that had never been provided.

Today, the Justice Department and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a settlement with Logan Square Aluminum Supply Inc., resolving alleged violations of the federal Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting regulations, known as the RRP rule, at renovation projects Logan Square and its contractors performed in Chicago and Chicago suburbs.

Several senior Ukrainian officials, including front-line governors, lost their jobs Tuesday in a corruption scandal plaguing President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government as it grapples with the nearly 11-month-old Russian invasion. Ukraine’s biggest government shake-up since the war began came as U.S. officials said Washington was poised to approve supplying Kyiv with M1 Abrams tanks, with international reluctance eroding toward sending tanks…