US Tasks Foreign Journalists on Exposing Corrupt Public Officials

* Pledges support, protection

Alex Enumah in Abuja

The United States of America has tasked journalists from around the world to join in the efforts at eradicating corruption globally by exposing corrupt individuals, particularly public office holders in their country.

The US, taking into consideration the risk, including death threats journalists face in reporting corruption cases especially embezzlement of public funds, urged journalists to proffer information on any alleged corrupt individual in their country and they will through already established networks and mechanisms move to commence investigation and subsequent prosecution.

The Chief of the International Unit, Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section, US Department of Justice, Mary Butler, while answering questions at a Virtual Reporting Tour session organized by the US Foreign Press Center, acknowledged the “physical threats of violence, financial sanctions, employment sanctions”, journalists face in trying to do their job creditably.

“So, first of all, we understand that you work in a very dangerous
environment.  

“That said, we do look at situations where public officials boldly expect that they’re untouchable. And often sadly, they are untouchable by prosecution resources in their own country. But this is where the cryptography and initiative and sometimes the FCPA Act, the Foreign Practices Act can play a role. Because sometimes the evidence of the way in which the crimes were committed does violate the law of another country, including the US.

“And we can take action. We may have difficulty bringing criminal cases because people may have immunity from prosecution or immunity from extradition, but we might be able to take the ill-gotten gains.

“And that’s really the goal of the initiative. And what I challenge you to do, if you can, is to find any links that might suggest that any embezzled funds or robbery proceeds from officials in your country have somehow moved either through correspondent banks, that is banks in the US, that function to transfer money from your country or an intermediary country through the US financial system to either stay in the US or to move forward to another place. If you can help point us to links where that may have occurred, we would be very happy to try to exploit that evidence, investigate that evidence, to see if there is some action that we can take,” she said.

Also speaking, the Senior Sanctions Coordinator, Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, US Department of State, Joshua Mater, said all a journalist needed do is to point to an evidence “that shows specific financial transactions that are taking place, the movement of money, the individuals, not just at the leader level, but kind of the broader network that may be involved in supporting or enabling a certain individual to commit corrupt acts.

“That information is extremely valuable to us. And we can use that to help corroborate and kind of meet the legal sufficiency thresholds”.

Meanwhile, the US said since 2010, when the kleptocracy initiative was established, it has targeted and restrained or forfeited approximately $3.4 billion in assets allegedly linked to foreign corruption, adding that: “We have recovered and assisted in recovering $1.7 billion in assets. And we have actually repatriated approximately $1.6 billion of those assets to date and we’re working on the remaining assets.

“Amongst those recovered and repatriated include Malaysia, approximately $1.2 billion in stolen assets and Nigeria, $311 million (linked to official embezzlement by a former dictator, late Gen. Sani Abacha).”