DAILY WHISTLEBLOWER HEADLINES:

This Is What Happens When Bitcoin Miners Take Over Your Town

Eastern Washington had cheap power and tons of space. Then the suitcases of cash started arriving.

East Wenatchee, Washington — Hands on the wheel, eyes squinting against the winter sun, Lauren Miehe eases his Land Rover down the main drag and tells me how he used to spot promising sites to build a bitcoin mine, back in 2013, when he was a freshly arrived techie from Seattle and had just discovered this sleepy rural community.

The attraction then, as now, was the Columbia River, which we can glimpse a few blocks to our left. Bitcoin mining—the complex process in which computers solve a complicated math puzzle to win a stack of virtual currency—uses an inordinate amount of electricity, and thanks to five hydroelectric dams that straddle this stretch of the river, about three hours east of Seattle, miners could buy that power more cheaply here than anywhere else in the nation. Long before locals had even heard the words “cryptocurrency” or “blockchain,” Miehe and his peers realized that this semi-arid agricultural region known as the Mid-Columbia Basin was the best place to mine bitcoin in America—and maybe the world. read more »

‘They Eat Money’: How Mandela’s Political Heirs Grow Rich Off Corruption

In the generation since apartheid ended in 1994, tens of billions of dollars in public funds — intended to develop the economy and improve the lives of black South Africans — have been siphoned off by leaders of the A.N.C., the very organization that had promised them a new, equal and just nation.

Corruption has enriched A.N.C. leaders and their business allies — black and white South Africans, as well as foreigners. But the supposed beneficiaries of many government projects, in whose names the money was spent, have been left with little but seething anger and deepening disillusionment with the state of post-apartheid South Africa.

South African regulators have urged the police to begin a criminal inquiry into McKinsey, the American consulting giant, over its relationship with a Gupta-linked company in a contract involving a state-owned utility. read more »

EU moves to bring in whistleblower protection law

Employees who blow the whistle on corporate tax avoidance or cheating on product standards would be entitled to special legal status under a draft EU law.

The European commission will next week propose legislation that intends to protect whistleblowers. Recent scandals have exposed the limited help available for people seeking to expose corporate behaviour in the public interest.

Next month, Antoine Deltour, a former PricewaterhouseCoopers employee who received a six-month suspended sentence for helping to reveal tax avoidance on an industrial scale, faces another court appearance. This is despite his conviction being overturned on appeal.

Proponents of an EU whistleblower law argue it could have led to earlier exposure of the VW emissions scandal. Systematic cheating on clean-air tests at Europe’s largest car manufacturer was uncovered by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

According to the draft commission directive seen by the Guardian, whistleblowers are not protected from retaliation. “Where potential whistleblowers do not feel safe to come forward … this translates into underreporting and therefore missed opportunities for preventing and detecting breaches of union law which can cause serious harm to the public interest.”

The law would give whistleblowers protected status, including the right to legal aid and possible financial support. Companies would be banned from firing or demoting whistleblowers and face “dissuasive” penalties for seeking to block employees seeking to uncover wrongdoing. read more »

Maryland man bribed Veterans Affairs official in program for disabled veterans

A Maryland man pleaded guilty Monday to bribing a public official to steer more than $2.2 million from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to a fraudulent information technology school with services for disabled veterans, federal authorities said.

Albert S. Poawui, 41, of Laurel, owned Atius Technology Institute, a non-accredited information technology school, the Department of Justice said in a statement.

In 2015, Poawui and a vocational counselor at VA agreed Poawui would pay a 7 percent cash kickback for VA payments to Atius, ostensibly for vocational training for disabled veterans, the statement said.

Between 2015 and 2017, VA paid Atius more than $2.2 million, according to the statement, for inflated invoices that showed veterans attending classes for 32 hours per week when the program offered only six hours weekly.

One VA counselor received more than $155,000 for participating in the kickback scheme, prosecutors said, and another was involved as well. Another employee of Atius also helped Poawui conceal the scheme after VA initiated an audit, according to prosecutors. read more »