Earlier this month Transparency International released its Corruption Perceptions Index report, which had Russia coming in at 146 alongside Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe. Then there was the economic crime survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers, which again put Russia way down near the bottom of the most corrupt countries in the world, with 71% of the 89 companies they surveyed in the country reporting at least one instance of bribery, embezzlement, harassment, or fraud in the past 12 months alone. On top of all that, we have the death of the innocent lawyer Sergei Magnitsky who was denied medical treatment in jail, the ongoing travesty of the second trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and repeated killings of human rights activists with impunity and zero prosecution success to speak of.
As Jason Bush writes on his Reuters blog, these events "illustrate the huge gap that exists between official rhetoric and depressing reality in Russia."
That's why our ears perked up when we heard about a judge in Geneva going after Abba Abacha, the son of the one-time brutal dictator of Nigeria. Not only did the court pass a seminal decision on Abacha-era state corruption, they also went after the financial intermediaries who helped them launder their money. For those banks working with unsavory clients in Russia, this may be something to keep in mind... From the Financial Times (emphasis mine):
General Abacha is estimated to have plundered Nigeria's public coffers to the tune of some $2.2bn between 1993 and his death in 1998. A year later the new Nigerian government asked the Swiss to open an investigation.
In the same judgment Mr Aeschlimann also fined an unnamed Monaco-based financier for helping the Abacha clan hide its gains and ordered him to pay SFr10m ($9.8m, €6.6m, £6m), equivalent to the illegal commissions he received, to the canton of Geneva.
The move marks a further step in international efforts to tackle theft by corrupt rulers by going after intermediaries as well as principals. Another financier alleged to have helped Gen Abacha to launder cash through Jersey has been arrested in the UK and is expected to stand trial.
