«PPDi» Bribe Conveyance Of The Week: The Fruit Box

 

The Wall Street Journal October 6, 2011, 3:13 PM ET Bribe Conveyance Of The Week: The Fruit Box By Joe Palazzolo In our line of work, we hear about bribes conveyed in all manners. Through a series of shell companies, in paper bags, stuffed in envelopes, packaged with mooncakes. Today, Corruption Currents is baptizing another conveyance: the fruit box. In a recent case in Indonesia, anti-corruption authorities seized 1.5 billion rupiah ($168,600) in cash found in a fruit box at the country's Manpower Ministry. It had been delivered to two ministry officials by a businesswoman whose company won the tender for a multimillion-dollar project in Indonesia's remote West Papua province. Investigators described it as a "bonus" for helping the company secure the contract. Read the Reuters report here. In recent days, Indonesian Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo has been called in as a witness in the case, according to Reuters, which also reports there is speculation that Manpower Minister Muhaimin Iskandar could lose his job in a cabinet reshuffle. Both men have denied wrongdoing. The project — to resettle migrant workers so they can forge a better life in one of the world's most populous countries — has become a symbol of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's struggle in to rid Southeast Asia's biggest economy of endemic graft, as he promised in 2004. And the fruit box will never be the same. Now, cycle back several months to our coverage of ex-Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian, who is serving jail time on corruption convictions in his country. The U.S. Justice Department is seeking to forfeit his Manhattan condo and a house in Virginia that prosecutors say were purchased with bribes. Prosecutors say Taiwanese businessmen seeking favorable treatment in a bank merger paid off President Chen, through his wife, Wu Shu-jen. (Chen's eight-year term ended in 2008.) According to a forfeiture complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, executives at Yuanta Securities Co. LLC delivered $6 million in cash to the first couple's residence — in five or six fruit boxes. Wu Shu-jen told investigators it was a legitimate political contribution, and a Taipei court last year acquitted the couple of bribery charges brought in connection with the cash-filled fruit boxes. Taiwanese prosecutors have appealed the ruling. At Wu's direction, U.S. prosecutors allege, the cash was laundered through a labyrinth of shell companies and used to purchase a $550,000 property in Keswick, Va., and the Manhattan condo at 261 West 28th St. No word on the fate of the fruit boxes, however. http://blogs.wsj.com/corruption-currents/2011/10/06/bribe-conveyance-of-the-week-the-fruit-box/ Copyright ©2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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