Lifestyles Of The Rich And Infamous
Lifestyles Of The Rich And Infamous
How to keep foreign dictators from living large in the U.S.
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- Obiang remains free to come and go despite US laws barring corrupt officials from being granted US visas. — Reuters pic
In sunny Malibu a real estate agent named Neal Baddin helps the playboy son of one of the world’s most corrupt leaders buy a $30 million mansion. Teodoro Nguema Obiang lives off money taken from the coffers of Equatorial Guinea, a tiny but oil-rich country where most people endure repression and grinding poverty. But Baddin doesn’t ask who Obiang is, or where he might have gotten $30 million. He just collects his generous commission. And he’s not alone. In Oklahoma a company called IATS facilitates Obiang’s purchase of a $38.5 million Gulfstream jet–after a rival company had already turned down his obviously tainted money.
Does all of this sound like it should be legal in America? Well, it is. In a meticulously documented report, U.S. congressional investigators recently showed how legal loopholes and lax regulations let foreign kleptocrats treat America like a carefree shopping paradise while their people starve back home. Neither Baddin nor IATS had any legal obligation to know who Obiang was or where his money came from. That’s a problem.
This is not just about obscene displays of luxury. The same corruption that pays for Obiang’s extravagant lifestyle fuels abuse and poverty in countries around the world. In places like Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria–both countries featured in the Senate report and where Human Rights Watch has thoroughly documented gross mismanagement and corruption–people are trapped in poverty while basic health and education systems are gutted and political violence and repression are fueled by official greed.
It’s not supposed to be this way. The Patriot Act introduced controls designed to prevent U.S. institutions from facilitating money laundering and other abuses of the financial system. And the Bush administration’s ambitious anti-kleptocracy initiative was supposed to make the U.S. a more hostile place for corrupt politicians and their stolen money.
The Senate report shows just how inadequate these efforts have been. Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s vice president at the time, transferred $40 million in “suspect funds” into the U.S. with the help of his fourth wife. Meanwhile, American University in Washington, D.C., accepted $14 million for consulting services from offshore corporations linked to Abubakar without asking who the companies were or knowing where the vice president got the money. Pierre Falcone, a notorious arms dealer who is currently in prison in France, had free access to more than 30 U.S. bank accounts for nearly two decades. Omar Bongo, the late president of Gabon, brought $1 million in shrink-wrapped bills into the U.S. without bothering to declare it to customs and then gave the money to his daughter, an unemployed student. For a while she kept the money in a safe deposit box in a U.S. bank.
But it’s the easy relationships between corrupt officials and their U.S. business partners that really should attract scrutiny. Banks, lawyers, real estate agents and others have made hefty profits off their partnerships with some of the world’s biggest looters and most repressive politicians. Here, some of the stories that emerge from the Senate report border on the lurid: Take the case of Michael Jay Berger, a Beverly Hills lawyer who helped Obiang outmaneuver inadequate anti-money-laundering laws. Berger seemed to enjoy the perks of being a kleptocrat’s henchman.
Posted by Ovi
on February 21, 2010 - 8:16 pm . Filed under BUZZ, Financial & Money, Opinion, Politics, Real Estate & Mortgage, US.
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