Corruption Ledger

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Former state House Speaker Larry Householder and former Ohio Republican Party Chair Matt Borges were convicted Thursday in a $60 million bribery scheme that federal prosecutors have called the largest corruption case in state history.

A jury in Cincinnati found the two guilty of conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise involving bribery and money laundering, after about 9 1/2 half hours of deliberations over two days.

U.S. Attorney Kenneth Parker said the government’s prosecution team showed that “Householder sold the Statehouse, and thus he ultimately betrayed the people of the great state of Ohio he was elected to serve.” He called Borges “a willing co-conspirator.”

BERLIN (AP) — European countries said Thursday that they have decided to dissolve a system conceived in 2019 to enable trade with Iran and protect companies doing business with it from U.S. sanctions, but only ever processed one transaction.

The German and French foreign ministries said the 10 shareholders of INSTEX — Belgium, Germany, Finland, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the U.K. — concluded that there was no basis to keep it going after Iran persistently refused to work with the institution.

The decision comes at a time when tensions between the West and Iran have increased following Tehran’s crackdown on internal dissent, its supply of armed drones to Russia that have been used in the war in Ukraine, and the de facto breakdown of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers including Germany, France and the U.K.

A former Goldman Sachs banker was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison for his role in looting a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund of billions of dollars used to finance lavish parties, a superyacht, premium real estate and even the 2013 film “The Wolf of Wall Street.” Roger Ng was convicted last April by a U.S. District Court jury in Brooklyn, but he continues to deny charges that he conspired to launder money and violated two anti-bribery laws. Prosecutors said Ng and his co-conspirators helped the Malaysian fund, known as 1MDB, to raise $6.5 billion through bond sales — only to participate in a scheme that siphoned off more than two-thirds of the money, some of which went to pay bribes and kickbacks.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States on Thursday announced more sanctions against people and firms associated with Iran and with what it said was an illicit banking network used to conceal transactions.

The U.S. said it placed the penalties on 39 firms linked to a shadow banking system that helped to obfuscate financial activity between sanctioned Iranian firms and their foreign buyers, namely for petrochemicals produced in Iran.

The Treasury Department said the companies — from Hong Kong to the United Arab Emirates — made up a “significant ‘shadow banking’ network” that gave cover to sanctioned Iranian entities to disguise petrochemical sales with foreign customers.

The company attributed the decision to the latest round of Western sanctions against Russia, saying that transactions in dollars and euros will be unavailable to any individuals residing in Russia regardless of nationality.  

The exchange also banned users based in the EU from making transfers in Russian rubles via the platform, according to media reports. When trying to make a transaction in rubles, the platform prompts users to select a ‘local currency’ for P2P.

“In order to continue using Binance P2P, users can choose other available fiat currencies,” a representative of the exchange told Forbes Russia. 

Ukrainian troops eased out of their most precarious defences in Bakhmut. Russian President Vladimir Putin has set the conquest of the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, known collectively as the Donbas region, as one of his goals – and Bakhmut in Donetsk is key to that. “We understand that after Bakhmut, they could go farther,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN. “They could go to Kramatorsk. They could go to Sloviansk. It would be open road for the Russians after Bakhmut to other towns in Ukraine in the Donetsk direction.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also learned from the agency that the data is now being offered for sale on the dark web.   Leading lawmakers were informed of a “significant data breach” at the DC Health Link marketplace potentially affecting all members of the House and their families in a letter from the Chief Administrative Office of the House on Wednesday. CAO Catherine Szpindor promised a full list of the individuals affected but advised members to secure their finances “out of an abundance of caution” as their data may have been compromised.  

The Boeing 777 was en route from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Beijing with 239 passengers on board on March 8, 2014, when it vanished from the grid less than an hour into its journey.  For three years, Malaysia, China, and Australia searched for the plane in the Indian Ocean, where it was believed to have crashed, only to come…

A cellist is accused of helping Vladimir Putin channel $50 million into Swiss accounts. 4 bankers are also accused of not having checked the real source of the money. Putin is believed by some to have accrued vast wealth during his time as Russian leader. Four bankers have been accused of helping Vladimir Putin’s cellist best friend channel millions of…

Pentagon chiefs reportedly blocking Washington from sharing evidence of alleged war crimes in Ukraine with the International Criminal Court. The US Department of Defense is reportedly at odds with the administration of President Joe Biden over helping the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) investigate alleged war crimes committed in Ukraine.

A former managing director of The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (Goldman Sachs) was sentenced today to 10 years in prison for his role in a multibillion-dollar bribery and money laundering scheme involving Malaysia’s state-owned investment and development fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

“Today, Roger Ng was sentenced for his role in a massive and egregious bribery and money laundering scheme involving the bribery of high-level foreign officials in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates and theft of billions of dollars meant to benefit the Malaysian people,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “The Justice Department remains firmly committed to holding accountable individuals who engage in corruption, undermine the rule of law, and abuse our financial system to launder their illicit funds.  This sentence sends a strong message to criminals around the world:  if you violate our laws, we will bring you to justice.”

The chief executive officer (CEO) of Company 1, a multi-national corporation headquartered in Malta and with operations in the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, and the United States was charged with bribery in an indictment returned on September 30, 2019.

  ASIC has launched court proceedings against two business lending specialists, Green County Pty Ltd and Max Funding Pty Ltd, alleging they issued personal loans without being licensed and without undertaking proper inquiries. ASIC has alleged Green County and Max Funding did not make reasonable inquiries about the purpose of loans, which led to Green County providing personal loans to…

Carlson has been criticised for TV segment that used cherry-picked video to portray US Capitol rioters as peaceful.

Submarines are part of the AUKUS pact with the UK, which may also jointly develop a vessel with Australia.

The United States government has requested and obtained a warrant to seize a Russian aircraft valued at $25m, according to a statement released on Wednesday.

The US-made plane, a Boeing 737-7JU, is accused of travelling from a foreign country to Russia, in violation of US law and sanctions implemented after Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The plane was last in the US in 2014, according to the statement from the US Attorney’s Office for New York’s Eastern District. But the US alleges the plane has flown in and out of Russia “at least seven times, in violation of federal law”.