Sad day for Puerto Rico

US federal agents have arrested more than 70 Puerto Rican police officers on drugs-related charges.In all more than 120 people have been charged, including prison guards and soldiers. The US justice department said the arrests followed "the biggest police corruption investigation in the history of the FBI". About 750 FBI agents were flown into the US Caribbean territory to help round up the suspects. The justice department said that in all, 89 law enforcement officials had been detained: 60 members of the Puerto Rico police department, 16 municipal police officers and 12 prison officers.

Also arrested were three Puerto Rico national guard soldiers, two US army officers, and 30 civilians. The charges were the result of 125 undercover drugs transactions conducted by the FBI in Puerto Rico. Many of the detained police officers are accused of providing armed security for cocaine dealers in return for cash. "The justice department's commitment to rooting out and eradicating alleged corruption in our law enforcement ranks has never been stronger," said US Attorney General Eric Holder.

"This department has one message for anyone willing to abuse the public trust for personal gain: you will be caught, you will be stopped and you will be punished." The island of Puerto Rico is a major hub for smuggling drugs into the US. The reputation of its police department has already been tarnished by allegations of brutality and corruption.

Read more...

Corruption New Jersey style: Update 1

New Jersey corruption case advances with two guilty pleas

A corruption scandal case that shook New Jersey – involving three mayors, five rabbis, two state legislators, and a man accused of organ trafficking – took a step forward Wednesday when two of the accused entered guilty pleas.

Guy Catrillo, a former planning aide, and Maher Khalil, the suspended deputy director of the Jersey City Department of Health and Human Services, admitted to a federal judge that they took bribes – worth tens of thousands of dollars – from an undercover witness to facilitate business deals.

The undercover sting, which stretched for two years across multiple countries and netted as many as 44 people, exposed the deep and wide roots of graft in New Jersey.News of the sting has captured attention in New Jersey and beyond, as much for its cast of characters as for the outlandish details of the sting, as the New York Times described in July:

It was replete with tales of the illegal sales of body parts; of furtive negotiations in diners, parking lots and boiler rooms; of nervous jokes about “patting down” a man who turned out to indeed be an informant; and, again and again, of the passing of cash — once in a box of Apple Jacks cereal stuffed with $97,000.

Read more...

Corruption sting nabs Iraqi deputy minister

Iraq's deputy minister of transport has been arrested after investigators taped him taking a $100,000 bribe, the Iraqi Integrity Commission said Monday. It's the latest sting aimed at what many Iraqis say is rampant corruption in the country.

The anti-corruption body said Monday this was the first time such a high-level Iraqi official was caught in the act of taking a bribe. The announcement, made on the commission's Web site, said investigators detained Deputy Minister Adnan al-Obaidi last Wednesday.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Transport, Aqeel Kawthar, told CNN on Monday that the deputy minister took office August 10, and his arrest came as a surprise to the ministry. He said there were no indications that al-Obaidi might be corrupt before this incident, but he said the Ministry of Transport "supports and congratulates" the Integrity Commission's work.

• "Transparency International", The global coalition against corruption, website.
• "Internet Center for Corruption Research", website.

Read more...

Corruption New Jersey style, complete with body parts trafficking

A two-year corruption and international money-laundering investigation stretching from the Jersey Shore to Brooklyn to Israel and Switzerland culminated in charges against 44 people on Thursday, including three New Jersey mayors, two state assemblymen and five rabbis, the authorities said.

The case began with bank fraud charges against a member of an insular Syrian Jewish enclave centered in a seaside town. But when that man became a federal informant and posed as a crooked real estate developer offering cash bribes to obtain government approvals, it mushroomed into a political scandal that could rival any of the most explosive and sleazy episodes in New Jersey’s recent past.

It was replete with tales of the illegal sales of body parts; of furtive negotiations in diners, parking lots and boiler rooms; of nervous jokes about “patting down” a man who turned out to indeed be an informant; and, again and again, of the passing of cash — once in a box of Apple Jacks cereal stuffed with $97,000.

“For these defendants, corruption was a way of life,” Ralph J. Marra Jr., the acting United States attorney in New Jersey, said at a news conference. “They existed in an ethics-free zone.” Mr. Marra said that average citizens “don’t have a chance” against the culture of influence peddling the investigation had unearthed.

As 44 people walked before cameras last week, their hands in cuffs, after they were arrested in the state’s biggest corruption scandal in years — but not, to be sure, that many years — even their most scandal-fatigued constituents, from the gritty precincts of Journal Square in Jersey City to the glittering new condominiums on the Hudson in Hoboken, began to wonder: Why is New Jersey so unshakably corrupt?

That answer, it turns out, has as many nuances as corruption itself. Interviews with law enforcement officials, prosecutors and, perhaps the best authority on the subject — those arrested in previous sweeps, like Mr. Botti — reveal a culture of corruption so ingrained that it has become impossible to resist when the envelope appears.

• "44 Charged by U.S. in New Jersey Corruption Sweep", New York Times, 7/23/09.
• "The Man Who Sank New Jersey", Forbes, 7/23/09.
• "With arrests, New Jersey stakes claim as corruption capital", Christian Science Monitor, 7/23/09.
• "The beautiful side of New Jersey corruption", Time, 7/24/09.
• "Officials decry New Jersey corruption", Time, 7/24/09.
  
• "In New Jersey, Ideal Conditions for Corruption", New York Times, 7/26/09.
• "About That New Jersey Organ Scandal", Wall Street Journal, 7/26/09.

Read more...