The latest corruption news from Iraq – company or government bribes, theft, stealing – brought to you by Iraq Business News
A British businessman has been found guilty of an $84-million fraud involving the sale of fake bomb detectors to Iraq and other countries. A jury found Jim McCormick guilty on three counts of fraud over the scam, which involved passing off novelty golfball finders, containing no functioning electronics, as bomb detectors. They "ADE651" detectors were […]
By John Lee. Habtoor Leighton Group (HLG) chairman, Riad Al Sadik (pictured), has said Leighton's name “became very, very bad in Iraq” in 2012 following the bribery scandal. “HLG was definitely affected,” he told The Australian. “It took us quite some time to clean this up.” The company sacked a senior manager last year as […]
By John Lee. A team from Iraq's Commission on Integrity (CoI) has arrested an official of the Sunni Endowment for taking bribes to from investors in return for the use of a property owned by the Endowment. The official is accused of taking a bribe of $250,000 in return for the use of the Sara […]
By John Lee. An American contractor has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for taking at least $3.7 million in bribes and kickbacks while working for the US army in Iraq. John Alfy Salama Markus, 40, pleaded guilty in September before a federal judge in New Jersey to taking the money in connection with […]
From Al Jazeera. Any opinions expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News. The US government is still counting the cost of rebuilding Iraq after the invasion ten years ago. But the office responsible for hunting for millions of dollars stolen in the process is being […]
By John Lee. An Iraqi lawsuit accusing more than 90 companies of conspiring with Saddam Hussein's regime to frustrate the United Nations' program, and depriving Iraqis of roughly $10 billion of essential aid, has been dismissed by a court in New York. Reuters reports that U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein said the government of Iraq […]
By John Lee. Washington Post reports that the mandate and funding of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), which was established in October 2004, is due to expire in March, marking what it describes as the end of an effort to document and fix the myriad failings of the most ambitious U.S. rebuilding […]
By John Lee. The Iraqi authorities have reportedly released the deputy governor of the Central Bank of Iraq, Mohamed Salih, who has been detained for more than month on charges related to corruption. In October, Prime Minister Maliki removed the head of the central bank, Sinan al-Shabibi, accusing him of mismanagement and currency manipulation. He […]
By John Lee. The CEO of Total, Christophe de Margerie (pictured), is to appear in a Paris court on Monday to fight charges of wrongdoing relating to the United Nations oil-for-food relief program in Iraq. Total, Vitol and 18 individuals, including de Margerie (61), are listed as defendants in the trial over claims the program […]
By John Lee. Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki has said that some financial corruption is politically motivated, and some is exaggerated by the media. During the 6th Annual Integrity Commission Conference, the Prime Minister said that the fight against corruption should not be part of political wrangling, because it gives corrupt people a chance to escape […]
By John Lee. A US Army major has pleaded guilty to accepting gratuities from contractors while working in Iraq. Court documents say that Ulysses S. Hicks (40) was a U.S. Army captain serving as a pay agent for money used to buy miscellaneous items and supplies from local vendors. From about March 2007 to October 2008, […]
By John Lee. Iraq ranks in 11th place worldwide for the amount of money flowing out via crime, corruption and tax evasion over the past ten years, according to Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington-based research and advocacy organization. Illicit outflows of cash averaged $10.6 billion per year. Data for Iraq was not available in […]
