FBI Sting Nets 22 Executives Charged with Paying Bribes Abroad
January 20th, 2010When arms companies do this inside the U.S., it’s called lobbying.
In other news: Bribes Represent Almost One Quarter of Afghanistan’s GDP.
Will the FBI arrest the people responsible for installing the crooked Afghan regime?
Via: Christian Science Monitor:
Twenty-two executives at military and law-enforcement supply companies have been arrested in a sting operation by federal authorities. It is billed as the nation’s largest effort to enforce the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Justice Department announced on Tuesday.
The business representatives were charged with attempting to pay bribes to win lucrative overseas contracts worth $15 million.
The defendants were snared in an undercover operation run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in which two undercover agents posed as representatives of the ministry of defense of an unidentified African nation.
Under the alleged scheme, the supply company executives agreed to submit invoices inflated by 20 percent to cover agreed upon bribes and kickbacks that were to be paid to the middlemen and the minister of defense.
Rather than walk away from the business opportunity, the charged businessmen allegedly agreed to inflate their invoices and pay the kickbacks.
