Category: Corruption
Greece Goes After Novartis for Alleged Bribery and Kickbacks
May 18, 2022. Greece’s Health Minister Thanos Plevris announced plans to sue Novartis over what he alleges are illegal practices. In addition to demanding compensation, the country is implementing a three-point plan. The plan includes a mandate to set up a trading committee, appointing a U.S. law firm to defend the rights of Greece, and “an order for bringing an…
CDC bought data harvested from millions of phones to monitor trends not related to COVID-19
May 10, 2022. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) bought access to location data harvested from tens of millions of phones in the United States to perform analysis of compliance with curfews, track patterns of people visiting K-12 schools, and specifically monitor the effectiveness of policy in the Navajo Nation, according to CDC documents obtained by Motherboard. The…
Germany to face wave of bankruptcies amid inflation and Ukraine sanctions
May 9, 2022. The future of Commerzbank’s business in Russia will depend, among other things, on Russia’s behavior and further sanctions, according to Handelsblatt report. Germany’s Commerzbank is preparing for more businesses to fail in Europe’s biggest economy amid high inflation and economic perils exacerbated by Russia’s war in Ukraine. The lender expects provisions for loan losses to rise as…
EU drops plans to ban shipping Russian oil
May 9, 2022. Brussels has shelved its plans to ban the EU shipping industry from carrying Russian crude as it struggles to push through its latest sanctions package because of anxiety among some member states about the economic impact of the measures. A proposal targeting shipping that was introduced last week has been dropped by the European Commission following hard…
Financial Worries on the rise in the US, Gallup Poll
May 9, 2022. Americans are more likely today than they were a year ago to report being “very” or “moderately worried” about several aspects of their finances, reversing the improvement seen last year. People’s concern has increased in relation to paying monthly bills, maintaining their standard of living, paying rent or mortgage, making minimum payments on credit cards and having…
Clearview AI settlement: Will stop selling facial recognition tool to private firms and continue working with law enforcement
May 9, 2022. Facial recognition company Clearview AI has agreed to stop its sales to private companies in the United States as part of a landmark settlement reining in a technology criticized as threatening Americans’ privacy rights. The settlement, filed Monday in federal court in Illinois, marks the most significant court action yet against Clearview AI, a company known for…
More money to Ukraine. What’s your government doing for its own citizens?
May 7, 2022. The U.S. government wants $33 billion more for the War in Ukraine and is telling its people that Russia is a threat not only to Ukraine, but to Americans. The enormous aid package is twice the size of a provision approved by Congress last month. It would eclipse all the spending by the United States so far…
Data Leak: How Criminals, Officials, and Sanctioned Politicians Poured Money into Dubai Real Estate
May 7, 2022. A new leak of Dubai property data has exposed just how many foreigners have poured their money into apartments and villas there. The data, which dates from 2020, was obtained by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., that researches international crime and conflict. It was then shared with Norwegian…
Why did Wall Street loan billions to alleged fraudster Bill Hwang?
Bill Hwang secured billions in dollars in financing from leading Wall Street banks with lies that ranged from assurances he could quickly exit his positions to claims he had large holdings of easily traded stocks like Apple and Google, according to US authorities. The banks apparently took Hwang’s words at face value as they entered into leveraged derivatives trades with…
British Virgin Islands premier arrested on drug trafficking charges
The premier of the British Virgin Islands was arrested by US agents on drug trafficking and money laundering charges at an airport in Miami on Thursday, sending shockwaves across the UK-administered Caribbean tax haven. The islands’ governor, John Rankin, confirmed in a statement that Drug Enforcement Administration agents had arrested Andrew Fahie, the elected premier of the BVI, and called…
German authorities raid Deutsche Bank in money laundering investigation
Germany’s federal police office, criminal prosecutors and the country’s financial watchdog BaFin raided Deutsche Bank’s headquarters in Frankfurt on Friday, prosecutors said in a statement. The prosecutors said that a search warrant was issued by Frankfurt’s district court, based on the suspicion that unnamed Deutsche Bank employees may have violated anti-money laundering laws. They declined to give further details. Deutsche…
Leak: Supreme Court ready to strike down Roe v. Wade
Leaked PDF: Roe vs Wade Decision A majority of the Supreme Court is prepared to overturn the right to abortion established nearly 50 years ago in Roe v. Wade, according to a leaked draft of the opinion published Monday by Politico. That conclusion seemed a possibility in December when the court considered a Mississippi law that would ban abortions after…
6 Russian oligarchs have died in alleged suicides this year
Two Russian oligarchs were found dead last week, within 48 hours of each other. They were found alongside their families in what investigators are labelling murder-suicides. Since the start of 2022, four other Russia-connected oligarchs have mysteriously died by suicide. Here is a list of the Russian oligarchs who have met a mysterious end in 2022 — so far, as…
Russia cuts off gas to Poland and Bulgaria. Who in Europe is next?
Vladimir Putin announced last month that if “unfriendly countries” wanted to continue buying Russian natural gas, they would have to pay in rubles starting April 1. It seems not everyone believed he was serious. Would Russia really turn away profit by refusing payment in other currencies? Apparently so. Many media outlets are calling the move a ‘weaponization’ of the gas…