PAGE 24
N
e w s
F
r o m
PEOPLES DAILY, tuesday, APRIL 24, 2018
A SI A
Iran’s banks banned from dealing in crypto-currencies
I
ran’s central bank has banned other banks from dealing in cryptocurrencies, over concerns the technology could be used illegally. It said Bitcoin could be “turned into a means for money-laundering and financing terrorism” and “a means for transferring criminals’ money”. Iran’s currency, the rial, plunged to an all-time low in early April. Banks, credit institutions and currency exchanges all now have to avoid any sale or purchase of digital currencies. This is a blow for some in Iran who saw crypto-currencies as a way Iran could overcome problems relating to its banking industry and international sanctions. In February, Minister of Information and Communications Technology Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi
The Stop the War Coalition protested outside Parliament as MPs debated
announced a plan to develop Iran’s own virtual currency. Mr Jahromi’s project was also backed by Iran’s cyber-security authority, which said it would support virtual currencies if they were properly regulated. But the central bank did not agree. At the time, it told Iranian state media that the “wild fluctuations” of cryptocurrencies, together with “pyramid schemes”, had made the virtual currency market “unreliable and risky”. In early April, India’s central bank announced a similar ban on the sale or purchase of crypto-currency. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has given banks three months to unwind their exposure to virtual currency exchanges. The price of Bitcoin is currently $8,895.49 (£6,373.75).
Israeli groom arrested over Yemen war: Saudi-led air strike on wedding ‘kills 20’ celebratory gunfire video A
I
sraeli police have arrested a Bedouin Arab bridegroom after masked men dressed in black drove around a village firing rifles to celebrate his wedding. Video footage that went viral last week showed revellers shooting from vehicles on the streets of Segev Shalom, in the Negev desert. One MP said she thought it was “an IS convoy somewhere in the Middle East”. The groom, who is reportedly in his 20s, was detained on
Sunday night and was due in court on Monday. A police statement said officers were continuing to search for other suspects “involved in the dangerous incident”. The Times of Israel reported that a father and son had also been held for questioning and that vehicles believed to have been used had been confiscated. Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan had called on the police to act, saying: “The actions
documented on the roads in the south are very severe and we must not move on to normality after witnessing them.” “Fighting illegal weapons is at the top of the internal security ministry’s priorities and we must act against felons in this area incessantly,” he added. There are more than 200,000 Bedouin in Israel. They are descendants of some 11,000 nomadic people who remained in the Negev after Israel’s creation in 1948.
South Korea turns off loudspeaker broadcasts into North
S
outh Korea has stopped broadcasting propaganda via loudspeakers along the border with North Korea, ahead of top-level talks later this week. The South has dozens of loudspeakers along the border area, which blast everything from K-pop music to news reports critical of the North. The broadcasts can be heard by the North’s troops stationed along the border and civilians in the area. Seoul said turning them off would help set the tone for Friday’s talks. North Korea has its own system of speakers along the border, playing reports critical of Seoul and its allies. It is not yet known whether it will follow suit and silence them too. South Korea said the speakers, which play propaganda over the border at high volume, were turned off in the early hours of Monday morning. The move aimed to “ease the military tension between the two Koreas and develop a peaceful summit atmosphere,” spokesman Choi Hoi-hyun told reporters. “We hope this decision will lead both Koreas to stop mutual criticism and propaganda against each other and also contribute in creating peace and a new beginning.”
North Korea announced at the weekend that it was suspending nuclear tests and closing an atomic test site. The surprise announcement came as the country prepares for historic talks with South Korea and the US. South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in has called it “a significant decision towards total denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”. Pyongyang’s leader Kim Jong-un is due to meet Mr Moon next Friday at the truce village of Panmunjom, marking the first inter-Korean summit in over a decade. Mr Kim is also due to meet US President Donald Trump by June. It will be the first ever meeting between two sitting leaders of North Korea and the US. South Korea’s propaganda broadcasts have been running on and off since the Korean War. The idea is to persuade North Korean soldiers to doubt what they are told by their leaders. Their use has been increased and decreased over the years, following the diplomatic mood on the peninsula. In 2004, the broadcasts were stopped as part of a deal negotiated between both countries. But in 2015, after two South
Korean soldiers were severely injured by North Korean-planted mines in the demilitarised zone (DMZ), the South turned its speakers back on. The broadcasts were later halted again in 2015 but re-started in 2016 in response to the North testing a hydrogen bomb. South Korea did not say whether it planned to restart the broadcasts after the summits. Also on Monday, South Korean police clashed with protesters near the site of a military base hosting a controversial US anti-missile system. The Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system (Thaad) is designed to protect against missile attacks from North Korea. However, South Koreans in the central county of Seongju, where the system is located, believe it is a potential target for attacks and endangers the lives of those living nearby. About 200 residents blocked a road to the site, trying to prevent construction trucks from reaching the base, until they were removed by police on Monday. China also strongly opposes the anti-missile system, believing it interferes with the security of its own military operations. Source: BBC
t least 20 people attending a wedding party in northern Yemen, including the bride, are reported to have been killed in an air strike. Medics and residents said more than 30 others were also injured in the attack late on Sunday in Bani Qais district. The rebel Houthi movement blamed the raid on a Saudiled coalition that is supporting Yemen’s government in the country’s three-year civil war. A coalition spokesman said the reports would be “fully investigated”. The coalition insists it never deliberately targets civilians, but human rights groups have accused it of bombing markets, schools, hospitals and residential areas. The Houthis’ Al-Masirah TV reported that warplanes had carried out two raids on the wedding party in the rebel-held village of al-Raqa, which is about 90km (55 miles) north-west of the capital Sanaa. The channel put the death toll at 33 and broadcast video footage purportedly from the scene that showed a young boy lying next to the body of a man, screaming and crying as rescuers try to help him. The head of the Republican Hospital in the provincial city of Hajja told Reuters news agency on Monday that it had received 40 bodies. Another 46 people
had been injured, including 30 children, the hospital chief said. The top provincial health official, Khaled al-Nadhri, told the Associated Press that most of those killed were women and children who had gathered in one of the tents at the party. The bride was among the dead, he added. More than 5,970 civilians have been killed and 9,490 injured since the coalition intervened in the conflict between the Houthis and forces loyal to President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi in March 2015, according to the UN. The fighting and a partial blockade by the coalition has also left 22 million people in need of humanitarian aid, created the world’s largest food security emergency, and led to a cholera outbreak that is thought to have affected a million people. In a separate development on Sunday, UN Secretary General António Guterres condemned the killing of an aid worker from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in southern Yemen and called on those responsible to be prosecuted. Hanna Lahoud, a Lebanese national, died following an attack by unknown gunmen on an ICRC vehicle on the outskirts of the city of Taiz. More than 190 humanitarian organisations are currently working across Yemen.
A hospital in the city of Hajja said it was treating at least 45 injured people, including children
Feature
PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2018 By Ochiaka Ugwu
25
‘The largest foreign bribery case in history’ T he US Department of Justice called it “the largest foreign bribery case in history”. After Brazilian multinational Odebrecht admitted guilt in a cash-for-contracts corruption scandal in 12 nations, it vowed to change its ways. But Brazil’s authorities are still wrestling with an encrypted computer system used to run the firm’s illicit payment system. The federal police building in Curitiba, in the southern state of Parana, has hardly been out of the news. In June 2015, the nowconvicted former chief executive, Marcelo Odebrecht, was brought here. More recently, the HQ received former president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, jailed for corruption on charges related to the wider Lava Jato (Car Wash) investigation based here. Along one of the airy, tiled corridors, opposite a regular computer laboratory, there is a sealed room with a complex entry mechanism. It is insulated with concrete, like a bunker. “This room is totally isolated from external communication - internet, phones. And entrance is restricted. Even me, as the manager, I’m not allowed to enter,” says Fabio Salvador, the technical supervisor. Inside, eight specialised police officers and a technical assistant from Odebrecht have worked since September to crack one of the company’s computer systems, Mywebday. Prosecutors ‘speechless’ In the case brought by the US Department of Justice, with Brazil and Switzerland in December 2016, Odebrecht and its petrochemical subsidiary, Braskem, admitted bribery to the tune of $788m (£553m) and agreed a record-breaking fine of at least $3.5bn. The construction giant paid off politicians, political parties, officials of state-owned enterprises, lawyers, bankers and fixers to secure lucrative contracts in Brazil and abroad. Apart from being the largest international bribery case ever, the Odebrecht story has one component that makes it exceptional: this was a corporation that created a bespoke department to manage its crooked deals something prosecutors in Brazil and the US had never seen before. “In the Odebrecht case, there are many reasons for you to become speechless,” says Deltan Dallagnol, lead prosecutor in Curitiba. “How a company created a whole system only to pay bribes, and how many public agents were involved. This case implicated almost one-third of Brazil’s senators and almost half of all Brazil’s governors. “One sole company paid bribes in favour of 415 politicians and 26 political parties in Brazil. It makes the Watergate scandal look like a couple of kids playing in a sandbox.” And the web of corruption had tentacles reaching to Africa and across the region. The president of Peru was forced to resign last month in allegations related to Odebrecht. The vice-president of Ecuador is in prison. Politicians and officials from 10 Latin American nations continue to fall under the Odebrecht bus. Shadow budget Odebrecht was not the original focus of prosecutors in Curitiba. Lava Jato, the corruption case that’s enveloped Brazil - putting some of the rich and powerful, including ex-president Lula, behind bars - began in 2014 as a money-laundering
Marcelo Odebrecht is serving out his jail term at home investigation. Focus shifted to Petrobras, Brazil’s state oil company, where top managers were appointed by political parties in power. Investigators uncovered evidence that a “cartel” of engineering corporations including Odebrecht - was rigging bids and paying bribes to secure contracts at inflated prices. Petrobras had become a colossal piggy bank for its executives, politicians and political parties to raid. It’s estimated more than $2bn was paid in kickbacks, while Petrobras lost about $14bn through overpricing while the scheme existed. So in 2014, prosecutors began to investigate the most influential member of that cartel, Odebrecht. The company’s bribery department, known by the rather prosaic name of Division of Structured Operations, managed its own shadow budget. In plea-bargain testimony, Marcelo Odebrecht told prosecutors that everyone at the top of the company knew that 0.5% to 2% of the corporation’s income was moved off-the-books. “We’re talking about a company that billed 100bn reais a year. If we’re talking about 2%, that’s about 2bn reais,” he said. In other words, up to about $600m was committed to undeclared payments. Structured Operations paid bribes through a complex and often multi-layered network of shell companies and offshore finance. In Brazil, cash was delivered by doleiros - black market dealers. Or by “mules”, who travelled with shrink-wrapped bricks of banknotes concealed beneath their clothing. Brazilian politicians were usually paid in cash. Others had secret bank accounts. Sleaze machine This was organised crime - highly organised crime. All financial activity was systematised using two parallel, bespoke computer systems. The first allowed internal communication within Odebrecht and also with outside financial operators. The second - the one the Federal Police in
Curitiba still cannot access completely was used to make and process payment requests. But none of this was known to the authorities in the early stages of the investigation. A breakthrough would seal the fate of the well-oiled sleaze machine at Odebrecht. By 2015, there was enough evidence against the company to arrest the uncooperative chief executive, Marcelo Odebrecht. In early 2016, the Federal Police gained access to the Hotmail account of one of the Structured Operations executives. They found emails related to financial
“
By 2015, there was enough evidence against the company to arrest the uncooperative chief executive, Marcelo Odebrecht. In early 2016, the Federal Police gained access to the Hotmail account of one of the Structured Operations executives. They found emails related to financial transactions and a spreadsheet created by a secretary in the division, Maria Lucia Tavares. Her home was raided.
transactions and a spreadsheet created by a secretary in the division, Maria Lucia Tavares. Her home was raided. Stashed in a wardrobe were printouts from the Mywebday system itemising illicit payments. Tavares had made hard copies for her boss to look at, and then hidden them as the noose tightened at Odebrecht. Within the division, she was responsible for making payments. “I didn’t know who the recipients were. We used codenames, but I was never told who those people actually were, and I was never curious to find out,” Tavares told prosecutors. So Tavares was never interested in knowing the identities of Dracula, Sauerkraut and Viagra. Evidence destroyed Many of the politicians and officials given a nickname have been identified. But not all of them, says the police chief of Parana, Mauricio Valeixo. “We’re hoping to identify those we don’t know. And for others we have to get more information, because, for example, it’s not enough just to have a nickname,” he says. “We have to understand the reason why somebody might’ve been given $200,000.” The police chief is anticipating more arrests in the Odebrecht case, especially once technicians have cracked Mywebday. So why is that so complicated? “On Marcelo Odebrecht’s cellphone, we found information that there were orders to destroy evidence, to clean up devices,” says prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol. “It seems the devices that contained the files that could open the system were destroyed. We tried to rebuild the system in different ways. “We asked the FBI for help. It turned out we’d need a lot of computers doing only this for more than 100 years in order for us to have a lucky strike.” But Fabio Salvador, the technical manager for the federal police, is optimistic. His team had a breakthrough in late February. “This is a great fight for criminal expertise in Brazil,” he says. “And we’re going to win.” Source: BBC