Home of Brazil’s Top Olympic Official Is Searched in Bribe Inquiry

The federal police searched the home of the president of Brazil’s Olympic committee on Tuesday and called him in for questioning as part of a widening investigation into allegations that bribes were paid to secure the 2016 Games for Rio de Janeiro.

Prosecutors at a news conference accused Carlos Arthur Nuzman, the head of the committee, of orchestrating bribes to members of the International Olympic Committee. “He was the bridge that linked the criminal scheme together,” a federal prosecutor, Fabiana Schneider, said. read more »

Senator Bob Menendez faces federal corruption trial

U.S. Senator Bob Menendez abused his power to help a wealthy benefactor in a years-long bribery scheme that netted the New Jersey Democrat lavish gifts and major campaign donations, federal prosecutors told a jury on Wednesday.

“This case is about a corrupt politician who sold his Senate office for a life of luxury he couldn’t afford,” the lead prosecutor, Peter Koski, said at the start of Menendez’s corruption trial in Newark. read more »

Kenya asked to investigate BAT over claims it bribed Karua and Wetang’ula

Kenya has been asked to probe cigarette maker BAT, days after the UK formally began investigating the company for allegedly bribing Kenyan ministers to undermine anti-smoking laws and advance its commercial interests.

The UK’s Serious Fraud Office says it has opened a formal investigation into reports the company extended bribes to two Kenyan ministers in President Kibaki’s government.

The two – NASA co-principal Moses Wetang’ula and Narc Kenya leader Martha Karua - have in the past said they are innocent. The bribery claims were revealed by whistleblowing former employee Paul Hopkins, who worked for BAT in Kenya for 13 years.

They were first aired through the BBC’s Panorama programme in 2015 and then widely reported across the world. read more »

Madoff trustee recoups $687 million in biggest settlement since 2011

The trustee recovering money for Bernard Madoff’s victims on Wednesday announced his biggest settlement in six years, recouping $687 million from an Irish fund that began sending client money to the imprisoned Ponzi schemer in the 1990s.

Thema International Fund Plc’s payment would boost the recovery by the trustee Irving Picard to about $12.7 billion, or more than 72 percent of the $17.5 billion in principal he has said Madoff’s customers lost.

The payment represents transfers that Dublin-based Thema received from Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in the six years before Madoff’s fraud was uncovered in December 2008, plus 19.26 percent of earlier withdrawals. read more »