US arrests two Chinese oil company reps in Africa bribery scheme
WASHINGTON: US authorities have arrested Hong Kong’s former home affairs secretary and the ex-foreign minister of Senegal for leading a multimillion dollar bribery scheme in Africa on behalf of a top Chinese energy company, with some deals arranged in the halls of the United Nations.
US officials announced Monday that former Senegalese top diplomat Cheikh Gadio and Hong Kong’s Patrick Chi Ping Ho sent huge bribes to high-level officials in Chad and Uganda to secure business advantages for the Chinese company.
Details in the complaint pointed to CEFC China Energy, the Shanghai-based rising star of China’s energy industry.
CEFC China Energy has blown onto the scene in just a few years, taking major stakes in global projects, including a 14 per cent chunk of Russia’s Rosneft, and playing an important role in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambitious One Belt One Road initiative.
In the Justice Department complaint, the two men allegedly offered a US$2 million bribe to the president of Chad “to obtain valuable oil rights,” and a US$500,000 bribe to an account designated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uganda, who had recently completed his term as the President of the UN General Assembly.
“In an international corruption scheme that spanned the globe, Chi Ping Patrick Ho and Cheikh Gadio allegedly conspired to bribe African government officials on behalf of a Chinese energy conglomerate,” acting Manhattan US Attorney Joon Kim said in a statement.
The charges were based on their use of the US banking system to process almost a million dollars in payoffs, sent under the guise of donations.
Ho, who led a Hong Kong-based organisation called the China Energy Fund Committee, also known as CEFC and funded by CEFC China Energy, also provided Uganda’s president and foreign minister with gifts and promises of future benefits, authorities said.
Ho, 68, and Gadio, 61, are each charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and money laundering, with possible jail sentences of as much as 20 years. They were arrested over the weekend in New York.
Ho was Hong Kong Home Affairs secretary from 2002 to 2007, and served for several years on the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee Conference. Gadio was Senegal’s foreign minister from 2000 to 2009. — AFP