Tag Archives: Corruption

‘ACLED CEO Prof. Clionadh Raleigh’s take on the public effects of corruption on conflict, and other observations on the state of the world.’

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Source: Raleigh Report – May 2026

“…We must grapple with the public effects of corruption on conflict. By corruption, I mean the practices and perception of it, in small and large ways, across politics, the economy, and society. The daily corruptions that make people think that they are bearing the costs for decisions and benefits made and enjoyed by a small group, or that there are no consequences for those who can wield their power. And by conflict, I mean the violence that surrounds us here — not in far-off places. Massive changes in violence are coming, and these will require support for security and state violence, recruitment into security services, commitment to short and long-term political goals, and shared agreement about which conflict is valid and which isn’t.

The public’s attitude and position on violence and conflict is hardly the primary consequence of corruption — but it is one outcome, and since you are here to think about conflict, join in.

My central thesis is this: People will accept conflict and its costs when they believe their sacrifice matters — when they can see that their support is essential, and that the benefits, now or in the future, are real. They accept it when they know national security is a shared goal worthy of a person’s effort and support. But when citizens can no longer connect the decisions of their leaders to any tangible benefit for their country, and the costs keep rising, that resolve collapses. Faith in political leadership erodes. And when people believe their society or political system is in desperate need of change — yet nothing changes — apathy and anger grow, rather than action. That is when the social fabric begins to fray.

The corruptions that people are forced to live with have now stripped away their agency. And people who have lost their agency go looking for it. Extreme politics offers that promise. But extreme politics never restores cooperation; it replaces it with power plays — internal and external — and, increasingly, with violence.

My broader worry is that something fundamental has shifted in how our societies function, and that shift has left us dangerously unprepared for what is coming. As global power realigns, our living standards will decline, and we will discover that our security institutions cannot restore order where it breaks down. The quality of our political ideas — and those who represent them and us — will continue to deteriorate. No one is coming to fix it. Those who said they would have failed, and will fail again…”

“Corruption, abuse of power, fraud, trading of influence … are defined as crimes in Greek law,” she said. “So no one in the world will convince me that these categories are part of the job description of politicians here in Greece or anywhere in the EU.”

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Kövesi ‘shocked’ at past Greek fraud rules – Suspects ‘paid back and were free to go’

“…Speaking on a panel titled “The Shock of the New”, Kövesi said the EPPO had initially been taken aback by how fraud cases were handled. She added that legal reforms followed exchanges with Greek authorities, describing them as aligned with European standards for addressing fraud and financial crime.

“We were a little bit shocked at the beginning because what we saw in Greece was that if you commit fraud, you steal money, you are caught, you pay back the money, and you are free to go. How come? It was a shock for us, and we discussed this. This is not possible […] But the Greek authorities changed this law… very good. This is the European way to do things, and once you enter the EPPO, you have to accept this.”

Kövesi also reflected more broadly on challenges, saying: “There is nothing more difficult than to fight with mentality. You can have the perfect laws, but if the mentality is wrong […] I am tired of hearing that this is how things are in Greece. I don’t believe that the Greek people accept corruption as a way of life, and I admire all the people who dare to take a stand and be different.”

Speaking about the ongoing investigation into OPEKEPE, she said: “The main topic here is what really happened in OPEKEPE,” describing the now-defunct agency as “an acronym for corruption, nepotism and clientelism.” Her remarks came in response to the recent lifting of the immunity of 13 MPs allegedly involved in the farm subsidies scandal…”

‘Elite capture’: How Pakistan is losing 6 percent of its GDP to corruption

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At the heart of the IMF’s findings is the concept of “state capture”, where, according to the fund, corruption becomes the norm and, in fact, the primary means of governance. The report argues that the Pakistani state apparatus is frequently used to enrich specific groups at the expense of the broader public.

The report estimates that “elite privilege” – defined as access to subsidies, tax relief and lucrative state contracts for a select few – drains billions of dollars from the economy annually, while tax evasion and regulatory capture crowd out genuine private sector investment.

These findings echo a 2021 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report, which said economic privileges granted to Pakistan’s elite groups, including politicians and the powerful military, amount to roughly 6 percent of the country’s economy.

Ali Hasanain, an associate professor of economics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, said the IMF’s description of elite capture is accurate but added that it was “hardly a revelation”.

He pointed to the 2021 UNDP report and other domestic studies that describe how Pakistan’s economic system has long served politically connected actors who secure “preferential access to land, credit, tariffs and regulatory exemptions.”

“The IMF diagnostic repeats what many domestic studies, including those by the World Bank and Pakistan’s own institutions, have already emphasised: Powerful interests shape rules to maintain their advantage,” he told Al Jazeera.

~ Full article…

First Friends: How the First Couple’s Consigliere Went From Modeling Mogul to Special Envoy

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Paolo Zampolli –– the administration’s current Special Envoy for Global Partnerships –– is the subject of this investigation.

In Part I of this series, we met one of Trump’s closest friends from Italy: Flavio Briatore, a P2 lodge and Italian mafia-linked businessman with ties to prominent Victoria’s Secret Angels, at least one of whom he introduced to Epstein. In this second installment, the connections of Zampolli, another Italian close to both Trump and Briatore, are the focus. Zampolli has been in the news recently, not for the backdoor wheeling-and-dealing of his new, official U.S. government post, but because Trump and his wife Melania claim to have been first introduced by Zampolli amid assertions to the contrary that claim it had been Epstein.

As this investigation will show, Zampolli is deeply corrupt. From his beginnings as a protégé for the controversial modeling mogul John Casablancas, a man known for his appetite for what he called “child women,” Zampolli grew his modeling empire with money from Silvio Berlusconi, the corrupt Italian Prime Minister (and close friend of Flavio Briatore) who was forced to resign for his sexual escapades with minors while in office. Zampolli would later follow Casablanca’s example and marry his wife when she was 19, having met her not long after she had flown as an under-age teen on Epstein’s “Lolita Express.”

After leaving the world of modeling to work for Donald Trump in the early 2000s, Zampolli would become closely affiliated with the Clintons as well as the United Nations, where he worked on their climate change initiatives and on the development of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. In particular, Zampolli was part of the team that developed SDG 14 “Life Under Water” alongside Stuart Beck, a figure closely tied to CIA regime change operations in Palau, as well as none other than Ghislaine Maxwell and her TerraMar project.

Yet, that is not all Zampolli would accomplish at the UN, as he would figure prominently in a major UN financing scandal and also boasted close ties to suspect citizenship-by-investment schemes that would later see one of his close colleagues arrested and another dead under exceedingly bizarre circumstances. Those colleagues had been taking bribes from an organized crime and CCP-linked Chinese billionaire who was once at the center of the scandal that directly intersects with most of Jeffrey Epstein’s seventeen visits to the Clinton White House.

https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/08/investigative-series/first-friendspt2/

Australia: Explosive whistleblower testimony exposes corruption, secrecy and cruelty at the heart of offshore detention

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The whistleblowers’ evidence paints a devastating picture of a government system “enabling corruption,” where millions of dollars were paid for services “no longer required or delivered,” and where Home Affairs officials were pressured to cover up wrongdoing to keep the offshore system running at any cost. Tens of millions of dollars have allegedly flowed to companies linked to bikie gangs and corrupt Nauruan politicians. Contractors have allegedly used public funds to pay for luxury cars, art, mansions and yachts.

These whistleblower revelations reveal a web of secrecy and cover-ups that have plagued offshore detention for more than a decade and continues today, where public money disappears into private hands while people seeking asylum are abused at the hands of dodgy detention operators.

https://asrc.org.au/2025/11/10/explosive-whistleblower-testimony-exposes-corruption-secrecy-and-cruelty-at-the-heart-of-offshore-detention/