Brazil’s Petrobras has put a price tag on its massive corruption scandal, writing off $2 billion for bribery-related costs.
The state-owned oil giant announced an overall loss of $7.2 billion in 2014 on Wednesday, two months after its CEO and five other executives resigned over the affair.
Federal prosecutors have accused the former executives of illegally “diverting” billions from the company’s accounts for their personal use or to pay off officials.
More than 80 people have been charged with bribery and money laundering during the criminal investigation — dubbed “Operation Car Wash.”
WICHITA, KAN. (AP) – A former bank president and two of his customers allegedly conspired to launder drug money in Kansas for Mexican cartels, while two former employees of the small southwest Kansas bank failed to report the suspicious financial transactions, according to charges unsealed Tuesday.
The 37-count indictment is part of a larger national investigation, which has resulted in 20 indictments against defendants in Indiana, Texas, Massachusetts, Georgia, Oklahoma, Colorado and Mexico, the U.S. attorney’s office in Wichita said in a news release.
McALLEN — Lone Star National Bank agreed last month to pay a $1 million penalty after federal auditors said they found deficiencies in how it combats depositors attempting to launder money.
The McAllen-based bank, with 30 branches across Texas, was issued a consent order April 4 by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a subsidiary regulatory agency under the Treasury Department that oversees national banks.
KNOXVILLE (WATE) – The last of six people charged in a wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering scheme involving Benchmark Capital was sentenced Monday to 30 years in federal prison.
Joyce Allen, 67, must also may more than $20.7 million in restitution. Forfeiture of the same amount was ordered by the court.
Allen was found guilty after a September 2014 jury trial. The charges were contained in a superseding indictment against her and five others associated with Benchmark Capital filed in March 2014.
WASHINGTON, April 20 (Reuters) – U.S. airport workers will be subject to extra security screening under new rules prompted by the arrest of a baggage handler in Atlanta on gun smuggling charges, federal authorities said Monday.
Airport and airline employees will now have to be screened before flying by the Transportation Security Administration, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said. They also face increased random screening throughout the workday.
Fingerprint-based criminal history checks will be required every two years for airport employees allowed in specially designated security areas until TSA establishes a system for real time criminal history checks, Johnson said in a statement.
A former broker for JPMorgan Chase in New York treated accounts maintained by his clients as his own personal piggy bank — using about $20 million in client money to make unprofitable options trades and even paying down the mortgage on his New Jersey home, according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday.
Nearly two hundred U.S. citizens have been murdered in Mexico since 2013. Fierce gunfights, kidnappings, bus hijackings, car-jackings and extortion by Mexican cartels are all possibilities that could be faced by U.S. citizens travelling into Mexico. These have resulted in the murder of 181 Americans in the past two years.
In the most recent version of the travel advisory issued by the U.S. Department of StateAmerican citizens are warned to “avoid non-essential travel” to the Mexican border due to the continued violence.
According to the Department of State, in 2014 one hundred Americans were murdered in Mexico. In 2013, 81 Americans had a similar fate throughout the country. The number of murdered Americans added to the nearly 199 Americans who were kidnapped last year. Breitbart Texas reports paint a grim picture about the true security conditions in that country in comparison to the image painted by Mexican officials.
ALBANY – New York’s pension system is paying out about $531,000 a year to 14 former state lawmakers and officials who have been convicted of a crime, state records show.
All told, the state’s $176.8 billion retirement fund has paid out roughly $4 million over the past 15 years to ex-legislators after their convictions, according to a Gannett Albany Bureau analysis of data provided by the state Comptroller’s Office.
New Jersey’s 12 members of the House of Representatives urged the Committee on Oversight and Government to hold hearings on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s possible role in insurance fraud to deny claims to Hurricane Sandy victims.
In a letter sent on April 7 to the committee’s chairman and ranking member, the representatives cited a CBS 60 Minutes report that said FEMA knew of fraudulent practices by engineering and service companies as early as August 2013, yet failed to act.
Federal authorities on Friday raided a Houston business as part of an international investigation in which a total of nine people have been indicted for allegedly supplying Iran with high-tech microelectronics, power supplies and other commodities valued in the millions, officials said.
Two local men were arrested as part of the probe.
“The nine defendants charged in the indictment allegedly circumvented U.S. sanctions and illegally exported controlled microelectronics to Iran,” said John P. Carlin, assistant attorney general for National Security.
