Ambassador's remarks and public events

Remarks
US Department of Justice
Combating Global Corruption:  Tools and Best Practices
Ambassador Ross Wilson

Ankara, Turkey, May 3, 2007

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, honored guests.  It is a great honor to be here.  All of you are such distinguished people in Turkey.  And I know how important the judicial and law enforcement communities are to Turkey and to the rule of law, democracy and market prosperity – and therefore the success, of this country.

It is of course a pleasure to be with you at the start of what should be an interesting and thought-provoking conference.  I am proud of the work that the US Department of Justice and the Turkish Ministry of Justice have done in arranging this.

Special thanks are due to the US Mission’s Resident Legal Advisor, Suzanne Hayden, who is doing an outstanding job of working with people here on legal reforms and changes, on terrorist financing and other financial crimes, as part of our comprehensive cooperation to address the problem of PKK terrorism, and on other matters.

This is a conference on corruption.  All over the world, people hear about corruption and read about corruption, and all over the world people are victims of it.  Definitions of it range from “lack of integrity” to “abuse of public power in order to make a private profit.”  Of course, a lack of integrity is something that leads to abuse of public power for private gain.

The causes are many.  The consequences erode public trust in justice, in the law, and in governance – whether it’s governance by government or governance in the private sector – because, of course, the temptation to take a little for oneself, or perhaps to take a lot, really knows no national, cultural, religious, ethnic or other bounds.

Through justice, through the law and through governance, societies the world over strive to deal with corruption.  As you will know better than I do, this is not a fight you ever really win; it is one you keep on fighting.  One way to do this is to exchange ideas on how best to fight corruption and to develop tools to trace, freeze, seize and return the proceeds of illicitly acquired assets.  And that, I hope, is why you are here.

To restate the obvious, corruption is nothing new.

The idealism of the ancient Olympics was marred by corruption as early as 67 AD when a boxer was discovered to have bribed three of his opponents to take a “dive” so that he might win.  Emperor Nero bribed the judges to declare him the chariot driver champion – even though he never finished a race.

In  750 AD, the walls of a Hindu temple in India were inscribed with details of a scheme for weeding out political corruption.  Corrupt legislators banned from the temple, as were all those abetted them and their relatives for a period of seven generations.

On today’s agenda are investigations into the affairs of Arnoldo Aleman, a one-time president of Nicaragua who embezzled $100 million from his government; Sani Abacha, a president of Nigeria who amassed over $2 billion in illicit proceeds; and Alberto Fujimori, the former president of Peru who secreted over $20 million in the United States.

How those crimes were committed, discovered and dealt with will be presented to you, as will a case study on domestic corruption by an American congressman.  Each case offers investigative and prosecutorial lessons.

The Ministry of Justice will also discuss several past cases of domestic corruption.  And, of necessity in today’s world, the agenda also includes terrorist financing. Where there are large amounts of illicit money, the ability to divert some or all of it to terrorist activity is a reality we must acknowledge.  Going after terrorists for financial crimes can also be an alternative way of locking them up when the evidence on their involvement in violence may be insufficient to convict.

It is obvious why we seek to examine the past examples of “grand” corruption or kleptocracy.  We need current insights on today’s methods of corruption and methods of fighting corruption.  We need to learn from each other’s successes and mistakes.

But more than discussing lessons to be learned from the past, we – the world’s leading nations – have seen the need to establish a multilateral framework to fight corruption effectively in a world where international boundaries have much less meaning than they used to.

We are doing this now through such tools as the UN Convention against Corruption, the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption, the Financial Action Task Force, and other mechanisms.

It is a special pleasure for me as American ambassador to be with you here today.

Allies for over fifty years, the United States and Turkey once again have joined forces, this time in adopting and ratifying one of the major international tools in the fight against corruption – the UN Convention against Corruption.

In the next two days you will hear of criminal cases that arose within the United States and elsewhere throughout the world that brought to the forefront the impact of corruption upon nations and their citizens.This forum should be a useful opportunity to discuss how government experts like you were able to investigate, prosecute and succeed in obtaining and returning large amounts of stolen funds back to their state treasuries.  Not surprisingly, the tools required to combat corruption are similar to those used to combat money laundering and terrorist financing – as public and financial institutions are all too often the unwitting pawns of those who are seeking to steal from their own people.

I know that Turkey is working closely within the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption and you will have a detailed presentation concerning Turkey and GRECO’s joint efforts.  Turkey and the United States are working within the OECD framework and its Anti-Bribery convention, the Financial Action Task Force and other fora, to effect change and establish international best practices.

And in our own effort to protect US global interests against high-level, large scale corruption by public officials, the United States has developed a national strategy to coordinate international efforts in this area.  All of these are tools – some new, some old, but newly honed – to address the issue of international corruption.

It is an honor to see and meet with those of you from the Ministry of Justice who are charged with and empowered to ensure that justice is served.  To see those of you from the Ministry of Interior whose responsibility it is, using the laws of the land and your own special skills,  to identify those who are corrupt and assist prosecutors by obtaining evidence to bring perpetrators to account.  To see those of you who represent the Ministry of Finance, MASAK, who bear the critical responsibility of monitoring and following complicated financial trails – work that is difficult, but obviously important in today’s global and computerized economy.

Together, you in this room are the gatekeepers in the global fight against corruption.  You are keepers of our common public trust.

I am also pleased to have the opportunity to reflect on the relationship and growing interests and friendship between the US Department of Justice and the Ministry of Justice in Turkey.  In place of the respectful, but separate association, I think that our ministries are developing an alliance to enhance our collective ability to combat terrorism, money laundering, financial crimes and corruption.

I hope that these proceedings will be helpful to you.  Congratulations and thank you.