(NewsNation) — In a scheme allegedly involving Turkey, Ghana and the U.S. banking system, the Department of Justice says hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes were paid.
The DOJ has charged Asante Kwaku Berko with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and money laundering. Berko is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Ghana and worked at an unnamed U.S. bank.
Berko had been in the United Kingdom for the past 18 months after he was arrested by Interpol, and he has now been extradited to the U.S.
The charges stem from efforts to build a multimillion-dollar power plant in Ghana. A Turkish power company was a client at the bank where Berko worked and wanted to win the contract to build the power plant, according to the Justice Department. As the executive director in the Investment Banking Division of what prosecutors call a subsidiary of that bank, Berko oversaw the deal.
“For over two years, Asante Berko, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Ghana, allegedly bribed Ghanian government officials to monopolize a promising business deal and used United States bank accounts to transfer such kickbacks,” said the FBI’s Christie Curtis as part of a prepared statement. Curtis is the acting assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office.
The bribes allegedly started about a decade ago, lasting for a few years. Starting in December of 2014, prosecutors say, Berko and others paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes — and received kickbacks from the Ghana government officials who received the bribes. Prosecutors say they have emails between Berko and others detailing who in Ghana’s government was bribed and who paid kickbacks to Berko.
In 2015, Ghana’s parliament approved the deal awarding the power plant contract to the Turkish company, but the payments and kickbacks allegedly continued. The DOJ says the payments were hidden in the U.S. banking system and foreign banks through money laundering.
Several government agencies were involved in the investigation, including the FBI’s International Corruption Unit, the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, the government of the United Kingdom, Interpol and the U.S. Marshals Service.