Category: Corruption

Transparency International’s 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index shows a world where democratic institutions are weakening, civic space is shrinking, and corruption is rising—from Europe and the Americas to Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. Nepal’s Post-Uprising Election: Anti-Corruption Promises Vs Public SkepticismNepal is heading to polls on March 5 to democratically replace its government toppled by “Gen Z” protests six months ago. Every major political party is promising specific ways to end corruption, but the voters are questioning what they will deliver.Corruption is surging worldwide, threatening public trust, enabling organized crime, and weakening democratic institutions, Transparency International warned Tuesday in its 2025…

Malaysia’s anti-corruption authorities said they had seized millions of dollars in cash, gold and luxury goods and frozen company bank accounts as part of a widening investigation into alleged corruption in military procurement, an inquiry that has ensnared senior armed forces figures and civilian contractors. The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission said the investigation focuses on two related cases involving suspected bribery, abuse of power and money laundering. At a news conference, Azam Baki, the agency’s chief commissioner, said 23 people — including military personnel and civilians — had been arrested so far. In the larger of the two cases, investigators seized…

Swiss prosecutors filed charges Monday against Credit Suisse over what they say were organizational failures that allowed money laundering linked to Mozambique’s “tuna bonds” fraud, which devastated the country’s economy in the 2010s. The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland said Credit Suisse Group AG and its parent, UBS Group AG, which absorbed the bank in 2023, are being held liable for “organizational deficiencies” that allowed the laundering to occur. Prosecutors also indicted a former Credit Suisse employee for aggravated money laundering. According to the indictment, the deficiencies enabled more than $2 billion in loans to be issued to…

The U.K. government launched a more aggressive anti-corruption offensive, vowing to hunt down the lawyers, accountants and financial professionals who help criminals and sanctioned oligarchs launder their wealth through Britain’s economy. The new strategy outlines more than 120 commitments across government and includes 15 million pounds (over $20 million) in new funding to expand the City of London Police’s Domestic Corruption Unit. Officials say the plan aims to close legal loopholes and strengthen the country’s defenses against illicit finance. To disrupt professionals who “enable corruption,” the document aims to go after practices such as creating opaque company structures, providing specialized…

Augustus James Ulysses Jaspert, Gus for short, arrived in Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands, on 21 August 2017, just two weeks away from catastrophe. Jaspert, who was in his late 30s, had recently been appointed governor by the late Queen Elizabeth II, on the recommendation of the Foreign Office in London. The BVI is an overseas territory of Britain, with only partial independence, and the governor effectively acts as a backstop to the locally elected legislature. For Jaspert, a career civil servant, it would be his first hands-on experience of governing – and his first time in…

Corrupt insiders and criminal networks will be brought to justice by a strengthened specialist police unit and tougher safeguards across the public sector, as government unveils a landmark anti-corruption strategy. Launching today, the new strategy sets out how the UK will shut out corrupt actors, disrupt dirty money and restore integrity in public life. It targets corrupt networks at home and abroad to strengthen national security while driving growth. Action to root out corruption in the UK will step up through a major expansion of the Domestic Corruption Unit (DCU) based in the City of London Police. Backed by £15…

Albania’s Special Court for Organized Crime and Corruption last Friday suspended Deputy Prime Minister and Infrastructure Minister Belinda Balluku and barred her from leaving the country as she faces charges of abusing major public tenders. In its ruling, the court said Balluku is accused of manipulating procurement procedures for the 190 million euros ($219.2 million) Llogara Tunnel project and for Lot 4 of Tirana’s Outer Ring Road. Judges continued two security measures against her—a ban on leaving the country and suspension from exercising any public duty or service. The court also kept two of her subordinates under house arrest: Albanian…

China’s top anti-corruption watchdog has launched an investigation into Yi Huiman, the former head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) and a veteran of the country’s banking sector. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Commission of Supervision claimed that Yi, 61, is suspected of “serious violations of discipline and law” and is under disciplinary and supervisory review. Yi is one of the most prominent financial officials to face scrutiny in recent years. He spent decades in China’s state-owned banking system, rising to chairman of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the world’s largest lender…

As Denmark takes over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union on Tuesday, Transparency International is calling on Copenhagen to break a deadlock in stalled negotiations over the EU Anti-Corruption Directive. Talks between EU member states and the European Parliament collapsed last week after negotiators failed to reach agreement on key provisions of the directive, which aims to standardize definitions of corruption offenses and establish common penalties across the bloc. While the European Parliament has pushed for stronger measures, Transparency International says a handful of member states are blocking progress. Italy has reportedly demanded the removal of…

Lithuanian Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas resigned on Thursday following a widening corruption scandal that has engulfed his family and inner circle, triggering the collapse of his cabinet after less than a year in office. His resignation, confirmed first by President Gitanas Nausėda, came after Lithuania’s Financial Crime Investigation Service raided on Thursday UAB Dankora, a company co-owned by Paluckas’ sister-in-law. Investigators are probing whether European Union development funds intended for an electric boat charging facility were misused. The project — located in a village with no direct water access — had received more than 170,000 euros in EU funding, much…

Civil society groups are urging the European Union to adopt stronger anti-corruption measures as negotiations over the proposed EU Anti-Corruption Directive enter their final phase. An open letter released June 2 calls on EU leaders to show “genuine political will” and support the robust provisions already backed by the European Parliament. The directive aims to create a common framework for preventing and tackling corruption across member states and is now under negotiation between the Parliament and the Council of Ministers. The letter is backed by 57 organizations, including 23 national chapters and partners of Transparency International. Transparency International’s research highlights…

A court in Tbilisi on Monday ordered two months of pre-trial detention for Georgia’s former deputy economy minister, who is accused of systematically abusing his position to amass more than 2.5 million lari (US$920,000) in illicit funds with the help of accomplice Some of the money he made this way was invested in property abroad, which he declared only after reporters uncovered it. Romeo Mikautadze, who served as Deputy Economy Minister, was arrested Friday evening by Georgia’s State Security Service (SSS). According to an official statement, Mikautadze allegedly used his position, connections, and experience for personal gain—providing unfair advantages to…

SFO Joins Global Anti-Corruption Alliance: The Serious Fraud Office has become a member of the International Anti-Corruption Coordination Centre to strengthen its international enforcement capabilities.Enhanced Intelligence Access: Membership provides the SFO with greater access to intelligence on overseas corruption involving politically exposed persons and multinational firms.Autonomy Maintained: While collaborating internationally, the SFO will retain full control over its investigations.Part of Broader Strategy: The move follows the formation of a tri-national taskforce with France and Switzerland and updated corporate guidance on reporting misconduct.Proven Global Impact: Since 2017, the IACCC has helped identify over £1.8 billion in stolen assets and aided investigations…

French authorities have been given the greenlight to seize a villa owned by Vladimir Plahotniuc, a former top Moldovan politician who is on the run from corruption charges stemming from his alleged role in a billion-dollar banking scandal. Plahotniuc, the former leader of the Democratic Party of Moldova, fled the country amid a power shift in June 2019. He has since been implicated in a scandal dubbed the “Theft of the Century,” which saw $1 billion stolen from three national banks between 2012 and 2014, plunging the country into economic crisis. Moldovan prosecutors accuse Plahotniuc of receiving tens of millions…

Facing prosecution in a dozen countries including Switzerland, Riad Salameh is suspected, in collaboration with his brother Raja, of having defrauded the Central Bank of Lebanon (BDL), which he headed from 1993 until 2023, of hundreds of millions of dollars. In Geneva, allegedly illegal funds amounting to almost 330 million dollars have been identified in accounts at HSBC Private Bank (Switzerland). Public Eye has obtained unpublished court documents showing that, for more than a decade, the bank chose to ignore all the warnings issued by its own compliance department. This case clearly highlights the flaws in the Swiss anti-money-laundering system.The…

A court in Bangladesh denied bail on Thursday to the former head of the country’s capital markets regulator, who is accused of money laundering and receiving $361,000 in bribes. Police arrested Shibli Rubayat ul Islam, the ex-chair of the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission, on Tuesday. A court in the capital, Dhaka, has now ordered him to remain in jail to face further questioning. “The allegations made against him in the case file are baseless,” said Rubayat ul Islam’s lawyer, Borhan Uddin. “The money for which the case has been filed against him is not illegal money. There has been…

Two of the biggest challenges humanity faces are strongly intertwined: corruption and the climate crisis. While billions of people around the world face the daily consequences of climate change, resources for adaptation and mitigation remain woefully inadequate. Corruption intensifies these challenges, posing additional threats to vulnerable communities. A lack of adequate transparency and accountability mechanisms increases the risk that climate funds may be misused or embezzled. What is more, climate corruption can also take the form of undue influence on decision-makers by polluting industries, and politicians having conflicts of interest because they own shares in oil and gas companies or…

Britain’s anti-corruption minister resigned Tuesday following intense media scrutiny over whether she benefited financially from her relationship with her aunt, former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, as well as a flurry of reporting about how London properties she lived in were paid for. Tulip Siddiq had served as the economic secretary to the U.K.’s Treasury after the Labour Party came to power last July. Hasina, whose government collapsed last August after mass student-led protests, is currently the subject of an ongoing embezzlement probe in Bangladesh. In December, Siddiq was named alongside her family in the inquiry and has denied wrongdoing.…

On 25 November, Albanian authorities, with the support of Europol, took enforcement actions against 21 individuals, including a former judge, a lawyer a police officer, and two investigative journalists as part of a corruption investigation linked to a high-risk criminal organisation. Over the course of the investigation, an arrest was made in Milan, Italy, thanks to swift operational coordination among the countries involved.The operation, supported by Europol, was launched after the analysis of encrypted communications from the SKY ECC communication platform revealed extensive evidence of corrupt practices, including organised and serious crimes. The suspects are alleged to have played key…

Family of Ukrainian MP purchased over $1 million in Dubai real estate as Russia’s invasion intensified, raising questions over funding sources and alleged ties to inflated military contracts. The family of Hennadiy Kasai, a Ukrainian parliament member from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party, secretly acquired over $1 million in Dubai real estate during Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) Ukrainian service revealed Tuesday in its investigation. Documents from United Arab Emirates public registers, obtained by Schemes, an investigative project from RFE/RL Ukrainian service, and verified with OCCRP, show that Kasai’s daughter and nephew purchased…

The man who served as chief of staff under former British Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss has been lobbying for a company part-owned by two sanctioned Russian oligarchs. Romania’s Logging Industry Continues to Cheat the Timber Tracing SystemSix months after the fraud was exposed and Romanian authorities promised to stop it, wood processing companies continue to cheat Europe’s most sophisticated timber tracing system, allowing illegally harvested wood to enter the legal market. EU Parliament Calls for Sanctions on Georgia and its LeadersThe European Parliament voted in favor of a resolution calling for the EU to stop funding the country of…

In order to step up efforts in the fight against corruption, the Council today agreed its position on an EU law that sets minimum standards for the definition and sanctioning of corruption offences, preventive measures and rules for more effective investigation and prosecution. The law’s main novelty is that, for the first time at EU level, it brings together in one legal act rules on corruption in the public and private sectors. Paul Van Tigchelt, Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice and the North Sea Corruption corrodes trust in the public sector, harms the economy and damages the…