One of Yahya Jammeh’s first diplomatic acts after seizing power in Gambia was to establish diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

The move was a clear-cut case of checkbook diplomacy, common in West Africa at the time, but it still rocked the boat in 1995. Gambia had violated Beijing’s golden rule of foreign policy – that all countries must see Taiwan as part of China.

The recognition ended up being worth millions for Jammeh.

He also amassed vast sums from business deals he struck with financiers of Hezbollah, a militant group based in Lebanon, which the United States has designated as a terrorist organization since 1997.

In Hezbollah, Jammeh found wealthy investors who needed to launder their money to get around international sanctions — and gave them access to his country’s economy in exchange for a cut of their business.

The two moves defined Jammeh’s approach to international relations. Throughout his 22 years in power, from 1994 to 2016, he often defied the foreign policies of global superpowers – sometimes on principle, sometimes to line his pockets…..– OCCRP

occrp

This week, an international project to disrupt the funding of terrorist activities brought together more than 50 experts in counter terrorism financing (CTF) at Europol’s headquarters in The Hague. The conference’s key objective was to strengthen the international network of CTF investigation units, enhance public-private partnership cooperation and improve big data analysis to fight terrorist financing efficiently.

The conference is part of a two-year project coined BeCaNet (best practice, capacity building and networking initiative among public and private actors against terrorism financing). The BeCaNet initiative brings together public and private players and is directed by the German Federal Criminal Police (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA). Official partners of BeCaNet are the police state security units from France (Sous-Direction Anti-Terroriste, SDAT), the Spanish National Police (Comisaría General de Información, CGI), the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Europol….No money for terror/ europol

Arend van Dam
www.w-t-w.org/en/arend-van-dam

Every country has a duty to combat money laundering and to prevent terrorist financing or any other threats that can compromise the integrity of the international financial system. A robust and resilient anti-money laundering and combating of terrorism financing (AML/CFT) regime is the first step towards being able to implement effective legal, regulatory and operational measures.

This document describes recommendations made by the OECD in relation to Latvia’s efforts to strengthen its AML/CFT supervisory and control systems.
Combating-Money-Laundering-and-the-Financing-of-Terrorism-in-Latvia-Overview

Terrorfinancing- dailytimes

Historically, women have been the ones to shed light on some of the most egregious cases of fraud and waste in government, corporations and other organizations. ‘Women Whistleblowers’ the website and social media campaign features many of these courageous women and has garnered the attention of the online community as a whole. On Facebook alone, over 63,000 people have liked the Women Whistleblowers page, and many others engage with the campaign via Twitter and Instagram. ..Why Women Make Great Whistleblowers

Women Whistleblowers
Whistleblowing Women
Whistleblower-Netzwerk E.V.

One of the largest leaks of banking records and related documents ever reveals an $8.8 billion network of offshore companies that allowed corrupt politicians and criminals to secretly launder money and hide assets abroad. Here’s the
#TroikaLaundromat
OCCRP Troika Laundromat …

While governments and citizens of Eastern Europe were struggling with the recent financial crisis and trying to borrow money from international financial institutions, billions of euros circulated in the region in an illegal, parallel, system that enriched organized crime figures and corrupt politicians.The system is built on hundreds, maybe thousands, of ever-morphing phantom companies…..Proxy-Platform

What Is The ‘Troika Laundromat’ And How Did It Work?

What is the ‘Troika Laundromat’?
How did it work?
How much money was involved?
Are there examples?……TheGuardian

Hearing of the European Parliament on Malta / 17 Black

For more than two years a corruption scandal has been smouldering in Malta, centred around two of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s closest confidants: His Chief of Staff Keith Schembri and Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi. Several leaks and the Daphne Project of investigative journalists revealed that Schembri’s secret shell company was to receive a million-dollar sum from a company called „17 Black“. To date, Schembri has not been able to refute this suspicion.

The first part of the hearing of the Special Committee of the European Parliament on Monday evening will be an exchange of views with the Maltese Minister of Justice, Owen Bonnici. The second part will feature Matthew Caruana Galizia, son of Daphne Caruana Galizia, and a journalist from the Daphne project. The Daphne Project is an association of journalists led by Forbidden Stories, which continues the investigations of the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was murdered last year.

Moneyval did not accept the invitation of the European Parliament’s special committee on the grounds that Malta was currently undergoing a mutual evaluation by Moneyval and that, therefore, there was no wish to comment publicly on Malta.Sven Giegold
Video

Dooa Eladl
www.w-t-w.org/en/doaa-eladl/

MORE – Modelling and mapping the risk of Serious and Organised Crime infiltration in legitimate businesses across European territories and sectors.

MORE aimed to analyse, model and map the risk factors of serious and organised crime (SOC) infiltration in legitimate European businesses. It focused on risk factors at two levels:
• Macro level, i.e., across countries,regions and business sectors;
• Micro level, i.e., at the firm level, in terms of ownership and accounting red flags.

MORE built on two previous studies also co-funded by the EU Commission:
• The OCP project, which analysed the economy of organised crime in 7 EU MSs (Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK) from a macro perspective;
• The ARIEL project, which analysed the script of OC infiltration in businesses in 5 EU MSs (Italy, the Netherlands,
Slovenia, Sweden and the UK) from a micro perspective.

The MORE project combined the two perspectives and extended the analysis to the whole EU 28. To do so, it adopted a mixed qualitative and quantitative method — which is the only possible way to address a complex issue such as SOC infiltration in
businesses. And in the process, it performed:

• The collection of data, cases and evidence from a wide variety of sources (judicial documents, police reports, institutional reports and media news), relying also on a widespread network of national contact points.
• An in-depth crime-script analysis of 24 case studies of SOC infiltration (equivalent to more than 500 companies
in all EU MS);
• A macro analysis of statistics on selected risk factors across regions, countries and business sectors;
• A micro analysis of ownership and accounting data from a sample of more than 1,000 firms confiscated from OC.

MORE is only a first exploratory step towards a systematic monitoring of the problem of SOC infiltration in businesses across the EU MSs, but it shows that such monitoring would be essential to mitigate and prevent SOC in Europe….MORE_FinalReport
Official website

Daphne Caruana Galizia and Ana Garrido Ramos winners of 2018 Anti-Corruption Award
Transparency International proudly announces that the late Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia and Spanish whistleblower and campaigner Ana Garrido Ramos have been selected as winners of the 2018 Anti-Corruption Award. The awards were presented at a ceremony at the 18th International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) in Copenhagen this evening.

Daphne Caruana Galizia’s son Matthew and husband Peter collected her award. Matthew Caruana Galizia said: “The bomb that took Daphne away from us extinguished the most powerful voice we ever had in our country’s fight for integrity. It also sought to rob us of the hope that her unwavering voice represented. Nothing will ever compensate for the journalist – let alone the person – we lost in her fight against corruption. But this award reminds us not only that hope remains ours to keep but that a large part of the world is hoping with us. It is an overwhelming and deeply emboldening thought for everyone fighting to win her justice and uphold her legacy. Thank you.”

Through her reporting, Daphne Caruana Galizia exposed corruption scandals involving influential politicians and others in Malta and abroad. Since her murder on October 16th, 2017, Maltese authorities have initiated criminal proceedings against her alleged killers, and an inquiry into whether anyone else should be charged.

Ms Caruana Galizia’s family have asked the government of Malta to establish a public inquiry to investigate whether the Maltese state bears any responsibility for her death, either through its failure to protect her or as a result of any state complicity…..Transparency

Daphne Caruana Galizia. Photo: Transparency International

The power of people’s pressure

Sunday 9 December is International Anti-Corruption Day. Together, we are #UnitedAgainstCorruption

Corruption impacts the poorest and most vulnerable in society the hardest.

It is ordinary citizens who suffer most when the corrupt steal funds intended for public services like infrastructure, healthcare and education, or take back-handers to award lucrative contracts to their cronies.

One in four people around the world say they have had to pay a bribe to access public services in the past twelve months.

But, when ordinary people fight back against corruption, they can make a real difference.
Leveraging people power

Across the world, Transparency International chapters work hard to help the public become involved and engaged in the fight against corruption…..Transparency