Organized Crime and Coruption Project

The mayor of southern Russian city was arrested Thursday for extorting bribes from businessmen who sought to lease government-owned land.  Igor Bestuzhy, the mayor of Stavropol, allegedly demanded a bribe of 50 million rubles (US$1.6 million) from a businessman who wanted to lease five hectares of municipal land.

Vladimir Markin, spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee, called on all businessmen who were extorted to come forward as witnesses.

According to the committee, Bestuzhy was caught when a businessman who planned to build a sport facility on the land prepared to deliver a bribe to aides for the mayor. The employees he sent to collect the money were arrested upon receiving the bribe. According to Markin, one of Bestuzhy’s accomplices confirmed that the mayor was the beneficiary.

On Friday, around one hundred residents gathered in Stavropol for a rally, after receiving the news that their mayor was arrested on corruption charges. The police broke up the rally after 20 minutes, saying that the event was not authorized, and threatening to use force if the protesters did not disperse.

Bulgarian Chief Prosecutor Boris Velchev said that the prosecution would not pursue charges against Sofia City Court judge Miroslava Todorova, who was accused by the Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov of having ties with the mafia.

In several media appearances two weeks ago Tsvetanov accused Todorova, who chairs the Bulgarian Judges Association (BJA) of incompetence, as well as of delaying the issuance of written motives for verdicts against high profile crime figures such as the drug lord Vasil Manikatov.

The judge responded by explaining that the delay did not obstruct justice in any way as the offender in question was already behind bars during the delay. Todorova also threatened to sue the Interior Minister for libel.

Responding to Tsvetanov‘s accusations, three former chairs of the BJA demanded that the Chief Prosecutor investigate the credibility of the allegations brought by the Interior Minister. The former BJA chairs asked whether Tsvetanov has officially contacted the prosecution if he was aware of inappropriate actions by Todorova.

Georgia’s gains in the fight against corruption in the public sector ‘destroys the myth that corruption is not culture,’ says a new book by the World Bank about how the former Soviet country has reformed.

The international financial institution says that Georgia’s progress in building a legal framework and enforcement system can and should be replicated by other countries in transition.  The organization lays out how to do that, it says, in its publication, "Fighting Corruption in Public Services: Chronicling Georgia's Reforms,” launched Tuesday.

“Corruption is sometimes seen as endemic, a product of traditional local culture, and, as such, inevitable,” said Philippe Le Houérou, World Bank Vice President for Europe and Central Asia Region at the release.

Former Croatian Prime Minister and leader of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) Jadranka Kosor could be added to a corruption investigation against her predecessor Ivo Sanader and their party.

Allegations that Kosor knew that some of the money kept in her party’s safe came from a slush fund consisting of embezzled money are destabilizing HDZ, Croatia’s second most powerful party.  HDZ had a majority in Croatia from 1990 until 2000 and from 2003 until elections in late 2011.

The claims surfaced after Croatia’s former insurance chief Damir Mihanovic told reporters that he had emails proving that Kosor was aware of the money’s provenance.  Emails that Kosor released in a recent news conference had been altered, he said.  He also accused Kosor of threatening him through intermediaries.

Bulgaria’s new Specialized Criminal Court for organized crime and corruption closed its first case on Tuesday with plea bargains for four of five defendants.

The first organized crime trial began on 16 January and culminated Wednesday in a plea bargain for Stepan Dimitrievich Kara, Georgi Borisov Boshnqkov, Ivan Kostov Ivanov and Silvia Mladenova Kapchikova, who admitted to running a drug dealing operation.

One of the defendants was sentenced to one year in prison, two were sentenced to three years of probation, and the fourth defendant received a sentence of one year in prison deferred for three years. A fifth defendant, Ilia Deruzov, pleaded not guilty and will be tried by another panel of judges.

The Court was originally designated to deal with high-profile cases of organized crime and corruption, but later shifted its focus to organized crime cases dealing with murder, smuggling, drug trafficking, bribery, and kidnapping. According to the head of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office, Borislav Sarafov, and the head of the Appellate Specialized Prosecutor’s Office, Svetozar Kostov, the newly established court has already taken over 80 cases from other courts across the country.

More than one trillion rubles (US$33.2 billion) left the Russian economy in 2011 as a result of money laundering, First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov said on Sunday.

Zubkov told state-owned Rossiya TV that the amount included suspect financial reports filed by banks to Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service.

The deputy PM said that the money goes primarily to Cyprus, France, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Latvia and Switzerland.  Zubkov stated that his government is ‘developing interaction’ with these five countries to try to stem the flow of illicit money.

Former Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase was sentenced Monday to two years in prison for corruption in the first trial of a high ranking official in Romania since communist rule.

The Romanian Supreme Court convicted Nastase for illegally raising US$2.1 million for his presidential campaign in 2004, when he ran as the Social Democrat Party candidate. Nastase served as Prime Minister between 2000 and 2004, while the Social Democrat Party was in power. Nastase is currently considered an important figure in the opposition coalition.

Nastase, 61, was convicted of illegally using the proceeds from a 2004 symposium dubbed "Quality Trophy," organized by the State Inspectorate for Quality in Construction, to fund his own presidential campaign.

Prosecutors in Hungary have concluded an investigation into allegations of corruption in the Hungarian oil and gas group MOL, saying neither the company nor its executives committed any crimes but investigation in Croatia continues.

“...No crime was committed in the interests of MOL, by its executives, therefore, we ended the investigation due to a lack of criminal actions,” the prosecution said in a statement released Monday.

The investigation in Hungary began after former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader was accused of accepting a bribe from MOL in 2008 in exchange for making the oil and gas company a dominant shareholder in Croatia’s INA oil and gas firm.  Croatian prosecutors approached Hungarian officials in June asking to question MOL’s chairman about the role of two Cyprus-based firms that paid Sanader €10 million.

Recorded telephone conversations aired in a Bosnian court provide new evidence connecting Zoran Copic, a Bosnian national currently in prison for money laundering, and the fugitive Serbian drug lord Darko Saric. These phone conversations also show a connection between Copic and Nebojsa Jestrovic, a Serbian national, who was convicted in October 2011 for laundering cocaine money.

The conversations from February 2009 were presented during Copic’s trial on Wednesday. Special prosecutor Slobodan Celic told the court in the northwestern city of Banja Luka that the content of these recordings shows that Copic was an important business consultant to Darko Saric. Recordings of other conversations played during the trial show the connection between Copic and Jestrovic. The two can be heard arranging a money delivery without mentioning any details about the provenance of the cash. According to the prosecution, the call proves that they both knew where the money was coming from.

Copic is accused of laundering around US$13 million for Saric between 2008 and mid 2010, while working with a number of other individuals as an organized group. The prosecution believes that two companies belonging to Copic, Agrokop from Banja Luka, and Šećerana from Bjeljina, were used for laundering Saric’s cocaine money.

Recorded telephone conversations aired in a Bosnian court provide new evidence connecting Zoran Copic, a Bosnian national currently in prison for money laundering, and the fugitive Serbian drug lord Darko Saric. These phone conversations also show a connection between Copic and Nebojsa Jestrovic, a Serbian national, who was convicted in October 2011 for laundering cocaine money.

The conversations from February 2009 were presented during Copic’s trial on Wednesday. Special prosecutor Slobodan Celic told the court in the northwestern city of Banja Luka that the content of these recordings shows that Copic was an important business consultant to Darko Saric. Recordings of other conversations played during the trial show the connection between Copic and Jestrovic. The two can be heard arranging a money delivery without mentioning any details about the provenance of the cash. According to the prosecution, the call proves that they both knew where the money was coming from.