The Justice Department announced today the filing of civil forfeiture complaints seeking the forfeiture and recovery of approximately $38 million in assets allegedly associated with an international conspiracy to launder funds misappropriated from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund.  Combined with civil forfeiture complaints filed in July 2016 seeking more than $1 […]

Kleptocracy and grand corruption are now under scrutiny as never before. With renewed global attention on these abuses, a relatively clear picture has emerged of the domestic political economies shaped by kleptocratic rule. Analysts have shown how state institutions are set up to allow elites and their families to systematically loot, while protecting these elites […]

Kleptocrats send money around the world with the click of a button, aided by unscrupulous professionals with the expertise to launder it through anonymous offshore companies and secure it in luxury assets in the West. According to the International Monetary Fund, as much as 5 percent of the world’s gross domestic product is laundered money, […]

Teodorin Obiang, the son of Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, went on trial in France on charges including corruption and embezzlement, with his defense lawyers using the first hearing to attempt to get his case adjourned. The glove from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” is among the items bought in Obiang’s “corruption-fuelled spending spree.” Obiang, who […]

Mega-rich homes tour puts spotlight on London’s oligarchs – Campaigners connected to Russia’s opposition leader Alexei Navalny – a lawyer and critic of corruption – hired a bus and gave a guided tour of houses and flats in London’s most exclusive districts, properties owned by Russian government ministers and wealthy friends of Russia’s president, Vladimir […]