Criminal Division Cases

Pursuant to the Criminal Division’s Voluntary Self-Disclosure and Corporate Enforcement Policy, on March 8, 2023, the Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania declined to prosecute Corsa Coal Corporation for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) because the company voluntarily self-disclosed the misconduct, cooperated with the government’s investigation, and timely and appropriately remediated.

As part of the agreement the company agreed to disgorge its profits earned from the illicit scheme, as modified by its ability to pay.

From approximately late 2016 until early 2020, certain of Corsa’s employees and agents engaged in a scheme to bribe Egyptian government officials in order to obtain and retain lucrative contracts to supply coal to Al Nasr Company for Coke and Chemicals, an Egyptian state-owned and -controlled coke company.

Terren Peizer, the CEO and Chairman of Ontrak Inc., a publicly traded health care company, was charged with securities fraud for an insider trading scheme that sought to exploit the shield provided by 10b5-1 trading plans.  By entering into 10b5-1 trading plans while in possession of material non-public information, Peizer is alleged to have avoided more than $12.5 million in losses.

Greg Lindberg, the owner or controller of multiple insurance companies, was charged with conspiracy, fraud, and false statements in connection with a $2 billion scheme to defraud mutiple insurance companies and their policyholders, and to deceive the North Carolina Department of Insurance, by misrepresenting the financial condition of Lindberg's companies and his use of company funds.

The defendant, a former official of Venezuela’s state-owned and state-controlled oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), received bribes in connection with various foreign currency exchange schemes.  The defendant was convicted of conspiracy to commit money laundering with specified unlawful activities of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and certain offenses relating to bribery of a public official contrary to Venezuelan law.

Two oil and gas traders and a Brazil-based intermediary were charged with conspiracy, multiple counts of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), and money laundering in connection with an alleged scheme to pay bribes to Brazilian officials to win contracts with Brazil’s state-owned and state-controlled energy company, Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. – Petrobras.

The defendants allegedly conspired to unlawfully enrich themselves by falsely representing Ruiz as a third-party subcontractor assisting business operations in Mexico for an American defense, aviation, information technology, and biomedical research company (Company 1).  Walther-Meade was allegedly an employee and executive of Company 1 and, together with Ruiz, caused false invoices to be submitted for work that was never performed in order to induce Company 1 to make payments to Ruiz.  Walther-Meade and Ruiz then allegedly used those funds fraudulent obtained from Company 1 for their own personal use and benefit.

The defendant, along with co-conspirators, allegedly conspired to pay bribes to officials at Ecuador’s state-owned insurance companies to obtain and retain business for themselves, an intermediary company, and reinsurance clients.  The intermediary company also allegedly received a portion of the brokerage commission obtained and used those funds, in part, to make bribe payments.  Merlo pleaded guilty to four money laundering counts of the indictment. 

The defendant, the former Bolivian Minister of Government, was sentenced to 70 months’ imprisonment having received at least $532,000 in bribe payments from a Florida-based company in exchange for helping that company secure an approximately $5.6 million contract in 2019 to provide tear gas and other non-lethal equipment to the Bolivian Ministry of Defense.  The defendant pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering with specified unlawful activity of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

Claudia Diaz Guillen, the former National Treasurer of Venezuela, and her husband, Adrian Jose Velásquez, were each sentenced to 15 years in prison for their roles in a multibillion-dollar bribery and money laundering scheme.  Diaz Guillen and Velásquez accepted and laundered over $136 million in bribes from co-conspirator Raúl Gorrin Belisario, a Venezuelan billionaire businessman who owned Globovision news network. Gorrin allegedly paid bribes to Díaz, including through Velásquez, to obtain access to purchase bonds from the Venezuela National Treasury at a favorable exchange rate, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars of profit.  Díaz and Velásquez were each convicted after trial in December 2022 of money laundering offenses with specified unlawful activities of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and certain offenses relating to bribery of a public official contrary to Venezuelan law.

Cary Yan conspired with others – including his assistant, Gina Zhou – in connection with a multi-year bribery scheme in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.  Yan offered and paid tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to high-level Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) officials, including members of the RMI legislature, in exchange for supporting legislation creating a semi-autonomous region within the RMI called the Rongelap Atoll Special Administrative Region (RASAR) that would benefit the business interests of Yan and his associates.

• Ng Chong Hwa, aka Roger Ng, a former managing director of The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (Goldman Sachs) was sentenced today to 10 years in prison for his role in a multibillion-dollar bribery and money laundering scheme involving Malaysia’s state-owned investment and development fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).  As part of the scheme, Ng and his co-conspirators, including Tim Leissner, the former Southeast Asia Chairman and participating managing director of Goldman Sachs, conspired to and did pay more than $1 billion in bribes to 12 government officials in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates to obtain and retain lucrative business for Goldman Sachs, including the 2012 and 2013 bond deals. They also conspired to and did launder the proceeds of their criminal conduct through the U.S. financial system.
• In August 2018, Leissner pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder money and conspiring to violate the FCPA.  Leissner agreed to forfeit $43 million and shares of stock valued at more than $200 million and is awaiting sentencing. Co-defendant Low Taek Jho, aka “Jho Low,” was indicted in November 2018 and remains a fugitive.
• In October 2020, Goldman Sachs and Goldman Sachs (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. (GS Malaysia), its Malaysian subsidiary, admitted to conspiring to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA in connection with the scheme. Goldman Sachs entered into a deferred prosecution agreement. GS Malaysia pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Goldman Sachs paid more than $2.9 billion as part of a coordinated resolution with criminal and civil authorities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and elsewhere.
• In April 2022, Ng was found guilty by a jury of conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and conspiring to launder billions of dollars.  In March 2023, Ng was sentenced principally to 10 years’ imprisonment.