Patrick Alley - Very Bad People: The Inside Story of the Fight Against the World’s Network of Corruption

TESTIMONIALS

Global Witness is part of a global Machiavellian plot.

MPLA government, Angola

Global Witness is just a bunch of well-intentioned hooligans.

Diamond-industry official quoted in Poisoned Wells , by Nick Shaxson

Global Witness is an enemy of the state.

General Salim Saleh, brother of Ugandas President Yoweri Museveni

Global Witness are worse than the Khmer Rouge.

Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia

I will hit them until their heads are broken.

Hun Neng, former governor of Cambodias Kampong Cham Province and brother of Prime Minister Hun Sen

British Espionage Teams on Mission to Discredit Zimbabwe.

Story about Global Witness investigation, the Herald , 14 May 2001

Global Witness? I call them blind witness.

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda

Is Global Witness above the law?

Spokesman for Beny Steinmetz Group Resources, shortly before losing a legal case they had brought against Global Witness

It was very naughty of themusing their big power to blacken my name. Theyre trying to frame people like me.

Taib Mahmud, chief minister of Sarawak

Global Witness, Global Deceitful, Global Lies.

Catholic priest Miguel Piovesan, after Global Witness uncovered his links to illegal logging in Perus last reserve for uncontactable tribes

Global Witness are amateurish to the point of bogus.

Mining billionaire Dan Gertlers Fleurette Group

Should I decide who are my friends because of the threat of investigation, pressure from Global Witness or public relations? Gertler said, rising from his chair to stride the room. Never!

Dan Gertler, shortly before being sanctioned by the US for corruption in DRC

[Global Witness] are a group of economic vandals who do not care about the lives they destroy.

Ivan Lu, executive director of Malaysian logging company Rimbunan Hijau (PNG) Ltd

This book is dedicated to those people around the world who daily risk their freedom, and sometimes their lives, standing up to the Very Bad People this book is about I am humbled by what you do. I hope this book contributes something to the cause, even if thats only giving people some idea of what youre up against.

AUTHORS NOTE

Every story in this book is true. Global Witnesss work can be dangerous and I have changed some names and anonymized the identities of many of our sources for their security, or because their jobs meant they shouldnt have talked to us in the first place. Some events I describe have been conflated to make the vast amounts of information we have, and their complexity, more manageable.

CONTENTS

HOW TO USE THIS EBOOK

Select one of the chapters from the and you will be taken straight to that chapter.

Look out for linked text (which is in blue) throughout the ebook that you can select to help you navigate between related sections.

The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman.
William Shakespeare, King Lear , Act 3, Scene 4

FOREWORD

By George Soros

My foundation has long been involved in promoting transparency and fighting corruption. Global Witness is one of the most effective and innovative groups working in this area. Global Witness first came to my attention in the early 2000s. More or less uniquely at the time, Global Witness focused on the nexus between human-rights abuses and environmental destruction, paying particular attention to the links between natural-resource exploitation, conflict and corruption.

I first met Global Witnesss three young founders at my home in London. We were introduced by the then president of the Open Society Foundations, Aryeh Neier. The trio presented a business plan in the hope of receiving funding from OSF. They set out ambitious plans for an anti-corruption movement, based on some early successes in Cambodia and Angola. The business plan, like most such documents, was long and didnt say that much of interest. But one idea leaped off the page.

Frustrated by the theft of Angolan oil revenues by the countrys own government, Global Witness developed a concept for a campaign that was eventually to be known as Publish What You Pay (PWYP). The idea was to get oil and mining companies to disclose the payments they make to various governments. The amounts could then be added up and the governments could be held accountable by their people for the monies they received.

Global Witness as an organization was somewhat anarchic and had very little money, but I greatly admired the passion, ambition, leanness and anger of the founders. I wanted to see them develop their concept and challenge the status quo that allows such abuses in our system. I decided supporting them was a risk worth taking; my instinct was that Global Witness would find further success. It was a good instinct.

I used my influence and convening power to socialize the Publish What You Pay campaign idea with senior policymakers around the world, and I provided extra funding for Global Witnesss work. In 2002, the campaign was formally launched. The British government soon took up the cause and formed the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which has become the most important anti-corruption mechanism for the extractives sector. This was a significant step forward in the battle against corruption.

Global Witnesss investigations around the world have gone on to unearth and expose many corrupt deals. Deals that deprived some of the worlds poorest but resource-rich countries of billions of dollars that could otherwise have been spent on the health, education and other needs of their populations. Deals such as the US$1.1 billion paid by oil companies Shell and Eni to obtain one of Nigerias richest oil blocks; the bribery behind an Israeli billionaires initially successful attempt to take control of the worlds richest untapped deposit of iron ore in Guinea for a pittance; and the timber-for-arms trade that propped up Liberian dictator Charles Taylors brutal regime.

The purpose of Global Witnesss exposs is always to use the evidence to create or reform governmental and intergovernmental policies and legislation, and to shift the norms of the way companies do business. I have always been very happy to apply whatever influence I have to help amplify Global Witnesss advocacy efforts.

Twenty years have passed since our first meeting, numerous new laws have been passed to tackle corruption and my Open Society Foundations have been supporting Global Witness ever since.

I was delighted when Patrick told me he was writing a book about Global Witnesss work. It is a story that needs to be heard. Patrick exposes an alarming shadow world of corrupt businesspeople and politicians, and the network of enablers and organized criminals behind them. Stories such as those you will read here are more usually found in the pages of thrillers, but these stories are frighteningly and unfortunately true. Corruption is one of the greatest enemies of democracy; to win the fight we need champions like Global Witness.

INTRODUCTION

HOTEL EUROPA, CINISELLO BALSAMO, MILAN, 4 AUGUST 2000

Leonid Minin opened a bleary eye as one of the prostitutes got up from the bed, grabbed her handbag and made her way to the bathroom, locking the door behind her. Her hands shaking, she fumbled around in her bag, found her phone and dialled her friend who was working the streets nearby. Unaware of this call and the danger it posed to him, Minin let his gaze move on around the room, taking in the evidence of what had been a pretty good party. Bottles of booze scattered everywhere, the floor littered with hurriedly discarded clothing, and one of the girls kneeling by the coffee table, busy preparing some of the best-quality cocaine you could buy. Leonid Minin liked sex and cocaine. Then he lay back and closed his eyes as the other two girls got back to work. And then suddenly the room was full of police.