(JollofNews) – The bribery scheme was hatched in the halls of the United Nations in New York and spanned several continents.
Chi Ping Patrick Ho, Hong Kong’s former Home Secretary, and Cheikh Gadio, a one-time foreign minister of Senegal, plotted to bribe high-level African officials to secure business rights for a Shanghai-based energy and financial conglomerate.
Their targets: Idriss Deby, the long-time president of oil-rich Chad, and Sam Kutesa, a Ugandan foreign minister who served as president of the U.N. General Assembly from 2014 to 2015.
According to a criminal complaint unsealed by U.S. prosecutors on Monday, Ho and Gadio engaged in a multi-year scheme to bribe Deby and Kutesa in exchange for “business advantages” for the energy company, a multibillion-dollar Chinese company that operates in the oil-and-gas and financial sectors.
Ho was arrested Saturday afternoon and appeared before a federal magistrate Monday, the Justice Department announced Monday.
Gadio, who served as foreign minister of Senegal from 2002 to 2009, was arrested in New York on Friday afternoon and presented to a federal magistrate Saturday. Both remain in federal custody.
The two men are charged with criminal bribery in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and international money laundering.
The FCPA bars companies from bribing foreign officials to gain a business advantage. Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Blanco said the scheme “involved bribes at the highest levels of two nations.”
“Their bribes and corrupt acts hurt our economy and undermine confidence in the free marketplace,” Blanco said in a statement.
According to the complaint, Ho and Gadio began plotting in 2014 when they met at the United Nations in New York.
At the time, Gadio ran a consulting firm while Ho headed a non-profit that received funding by the energy company.
The criminal complaint does not name the non-profit or the Chinese company behind it.
But a small outfit named China Energy Fund Committee fits the NGO’s description in the complaint.
On its website, CEFC describes itself as an NGO and “high end strategic think tank” and lists Dr. Patrick Chi Ping Ho as its deputy chairman and secretary general.
The non-profit says it is registered in Hong Kong and Virginia and is supported by “a special private grant fully sponsored by China Energy Fund Co. Ltd.”
CEFC China Energy Company Limited is “a private collective enterprise with energy and financial serves as its core business,” according to its website. The Shanghai- based company had revenue of $34 million (263 billion Chinese yuan) in 2015.
On Oct. 19, 2014, Ho met Kutesa at the United Nations. Kutesa had just begun his one-year term as president of the United Nations General Assembly.
A month later, Gadio allegedly advised Ho to “reward” the Chadian president with “a nice financial package.”
Two months later, Ho pledged a $2 million bribe to Deby on behalf of the energy company in exchange for obtaining lucrative oil rights from the Chadian government.
In exchange, Deby is alleged to have provided the energy company with “an exclusive” opportunity to obtain particular oil rights in Chad without facing international competition, according to the criminal complaint.
Gadio is alleged to have connected Ho with Deby and conveyed the $2 million bribe offer to Deby.
Ho is alleged to have paid Deby $400,000 for his services via wire transfers transmitted through New York.
In addition, the criminal complaint alleges, Ho paid a $500,000 bribe to Kutesa, the Ugandan foreign minister, in exchange for obtaining “business advantages” for the energy company, including the potential acquisition of a Ugandan bank.
Chad’s president and Uganda’s foreign minister were also offered gifts and promises of future benefits, including a share of profits generated by joint ventures between the energy company and businesses owned by the families of the foreign minister of Uganda and president of Chad, according to the criminal complaint.
FBI Assistant Director In Charge William Sweeney of the New York Field Office said Ho and Gadio “were allegedly willing to throw money at the leaders of two countries to bypass the normal course of business, but didn’t realize that using the U.S. banking system would be their undoing.”
Chad and Uganda are ranked the 15th and 25th most corrupt countries in the world, according to Transparency International’s 2016 Corruption Perceptions Index.
The embassy of Chad in Washington and Uganda’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not respond to requests for comment.
Source: VOANEWS
I’m not the least surprised. It’s the magnitude of dishonest breeding. That’s the Senegalese lifestyle: be corrupt, dialogue to get falsely and DUNDA. The same dishonest lifestlye they are exporting to our Gambia.
Babu Soli branding somebody as dishonest for being arrested for suspicion of bribery but will not utter a word of contempt against Yahya Jammeh, the most dishonest man of our life time. What kind of human being are you? Or what is the magnitude of your dishonest breeding? Please shut the fuck up Babu and saves us all from your hypocrisy. You flipflopping dishonest idiot.
This sounds like “sour grapes” to me. US companies are losing out to Chinese companies in Africa and hence, the U.S. is using its privileged position within the Global Financial System, to wage its economic war against competitors.
U.S. companies and “development agencies/NGOs”, have handed more monies and favours (through policies) to corrupt dictators and officials around the world to win them over, than anyone else, though they wouldn’t call that bribery.
This is all the more reason why efforts to free the international system from US domination should be supported by all who want to see a fair international system; a necessary prerequisite for International Peace.
The U.S. CANNOT international peace because it is NOT a fair player. I hope the lawyers of the accused use the case to expose US corrupt behaviour around the world.
Oops….meant to write: “The US CANNOT guarantee International Peace…..”
Your darn right bro, because the great US of A’s political system did prove to be this weak to choose to trust on demonic people like Trump whose dream was to bend down low to be ridden by high profile Hitler-like-global-war -mongers and pushers of global injustice. Imagine that swine head wanting to see the few elephants left in Africa to become extinct. These poachers and their contractors need to be poached. They are bloody unaware Africans and bloody unmannered Klan ****** ups.
America has plummeted head down as the hovering eagle to crawl into a hole like a rat. It all about ‘make America great again’.
Nasty Natty Dread,
You get the shit out of yourself whenever Babu speaks. President Jammeh didn’t take the reins of power on false promises. He flushed out a dastardly dysfunctional and unproductive regime under Ex-President Jawara and he did the hell of work by hauling the decadent socioeconomic sectors of our country to blossom.
What about your fat-bellied illiterate, who told LIES to the Gambians that he would “change” the country to…..shit, I believe!
A lot of false inconceivable promises that can only be recognized by the NONENTITY and IDIOTIC Nasty Natty Dread.
Now people are saying they are clean from the Jammeh era. Challenge to Amadou Samba and Mohammed Bazzi to go and visit USA and see if they are so call clean.
“Sour grapes” more like cry babies, LOL, USA government don’t like to be beaten at it’s own game, not to worry, China and Russia have USA in “check mate” all the way to the bank.