InfoBytes Blog
Hawaiian executive's bribery guilty plea leads to Micronesian official charged with money laundering conspiracy
On February 11, the Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed conspiracy to commit money laundering charges against a Micronesian government official alleged to have taken bribes to secure engineering and project management contracts from the government of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). The charges follow the recent guilty plea by a Hawaiian executive to a charge of conspiracy to bribe the Micronesian official in violation of the FCPA.
According to the DOJ, a Micronesian citizen was a government official in the FSM Department of Transportation, Communications and Infrastructure who administered FSM’s aviation programs. Between 2006 and 2016, the Hawaiian executive’s Hawaii-based engineering and consulting company allegedly paid around $440,000 in bribes in the form of cash, vehicles, and entertainment to FSM officials, including the citizen, to obtain and retain contracts with the FSM government valued at nearly $8 million. The complaint unsealed on Monday contains specific examples of requests by the citizen to the executive for cash gifts and a 2014 Chevy Silverado. According to the executive’s guilty plea, he fulfilled the citizen’s requests and sent wire transfers and the automobile internationally for the citizen’s personal use.