Section: Kleptocracy Initiative (USA)
Kleptocracy Daily: April 4, 2017
News A former advisor to President Trump’s election campaign has admitted contact with a Russian spy in 2013, allegedly providing them with “documents about the energy business,” according to a 2015 court filing. Bank of America Corp. is using a recent assessment of the money laundering risk in the U.S. economy to help determine risk among...
Kleptocracy Weekly: March 31, 2017
An Aspen Institute event earlier this week discussed whether or not an international corruption court could be the answer to kleptocracy. Watch here. U.S. Paul Manafort’s New York City real estate purchases over the past decade were examined by investigative journalists; many real estate and law enforcement experts say these purchases fit a...
Kleptocracy Daily: March 28, 2017
News U.S. federal prosecutors are investigating North Korea’s role in the attempted theft of nearly $1 billion from the Central Bank of Bangladesh. Deputy director of the NSA, Richard Ledgett, said last week that “if [this] is true, that means a nation-state is robbing banks. That is a big deal.” (OCCRP) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko...
Lessons from Georgia
KleptoCast 9: Ben Judah talks to Temuri Yakobashvili about Georgia’s successful anti-graft drive, current threats to its achievements, and Georgia’s role in Trump’s world. http://kleptocracyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Temuri-Yakobashvili.mp3 By Nate Sibley Before the Rose Revolution of 2003, Georgia was known as a...
Kleptocracy Weekly: March 24, 2017
The latest on KI.org: KI’s Executive Director Charles Davidson was part of a U.S. delegation in Lithuania that met with the Lithuanian foreign minister to discuss “Europe and the United States: Reaffirming Transatlantic Solidarity”. U.S. Kommersant alleges that an intelligence agent charged by the U.S. in the hacking of half a billion Yahoo...
Kleptocracy Daily: March 24, 2017
News An exiled Kremlin critic was killed in Kiev in brazen daylight shooting, which Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has called “an act of state terrorism by Russia.” (RFE/RL) The Kremlin denies that French presidential candidate Francois Fillon received $50 million for arranging a meeting between Putin, a Lebanese billionaire, and the CEO of...
Kleptocracy Daily: March 23, 2017
News The U.S. Treasury Department recently obtained information about offshore financial transactions involving Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, as part of a federal anti-corruption probe into his work in Eastern Europe. (WaPo) Though Manafort is gone, his decade-long business associate Rick Gates remains entrenched in the...
Kleptocracy Daily: March 22, 2017
News Paul Manafort received $10 million annually as part of a 2006 contract to promote the Putin administration’s interests inside the U.S., Europe, and the former Soviet republics. (Moscow Times) A Ukrainian lawmaker released new financial documents allegedly showing that Manafort laundered payments from the party of Viktor Yanukovych...
Kleptocracy Daily: March 21, 2017
New from KI: Natalie Duffy examines how the adoption of an open, non-proprietary identifier system would help improve federal procurement transparency. News A major new investigative report revealed how $20 billion was laundered out of Russia and found its way to more than 5,000 companies with accounts in 732 banks in 96 countries. (OCCRP) The...
Kleptocracy Weekly: March 17, 2017
This week on KI.org: Marius Laurinavičius discussed how Europe can help defend U.S. democracy, and why we should remain engaged in Europe.U.S. Former Trump administration pick, who bowed out following a plagiarism scandal, registered as a foreign agent for Ukrainian billionaire oligarch Victor Pinchuk. (The Hill) Members of the Committee on...
