FCPAméricas Blog
FBI’s New Miami-Based Corruption Squad Highlights Enforcement Focus on Latin America
5.08.2019
This guest post is from Dawn E. Murphy-Johnson, Counsel at Miller & Chevalier in Washington, DC.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has deployed a new anti-corruption squad in its Miami field office to investigate foreign corruption in the “Magic City” and South America. The task force, known as an International Corruption Squad (ICS), mirrors similar FBI teams operating in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. It will work in conjunction with the Fraud Section and Money Laundering Asset Forfeiture Section of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). According to the FBI, the four squads “enable a focus on international corruption matters without draining resources from the field.”
The creation of the Miami ICS comes at a time of increased U.S. enforcement in Latin America. DOJ and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently settled FCPA charges with Brazilian state-owned oil-and-gas company Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras) relating to a bribery scheme involving millions, if not billions, of dollars in bribes being passed from company executives to Brazilian politicians and political parties. State-controlled Brazilian power company Centrais Elétricas Brasileiras S.A. (Eletrobras) also recently settled with the SEC to resolve charges that former officers at Eletronuclear (in which Eletrobras has a 99 percent ownership stake) engaged in a bid-rigging scheme in connection with the construction a nuclear power plant. Several U.S. companies have been caught up in those investigations too. Meanwhile, DOJ has charged the billionaire owner of Venezuelan news network Globovision with bribing multiple Venezuelan officials as part of a billion-dollar currency exchange scheme, and more than a dozen others face federal charges in a bribery probe concerning Venezuela’s state-owned-and-controlled oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA).
Chris Cestaro, Assistant Chief of DOJ’s FCPA Unit, emphasized these trends in March 2019 at an FCPA conference in Mexico City. He said that both DOJ and the FBI are “continuing to invest resources in the anti-corruption space.” Although FCPA enforcement remains relatively steady, parallel investigations with foreign law enforcement authorities have changed the way the FCPA Unit works by allowing law enforcement to trade information across jurisdictions – collaborations that act as a “force multiplier.”
Cestaro also said that the creation of the Miami ICS demonstrates a continued dedication by U.S. law enforcement to these types of cases involving Latin America. In particular, Cestaro said it shows that resources for FCPA enforcement have not decreased. He noted that Miami is a natural place to imbed the newest ICS because of the significant pace of money laundering in the city’s real estate and banking sectors.
Cestaro’s comments echo sentiments expressed in press reports describing a pattern of “white-collar criminals who bribe foreign public officials and then launder the proceeds through the purchase of local real estate or fancy boats.” According to some, the FBI’s resources have long been diverted to counterterrorism work, leaving the agency unable to investigate South Florida’s link to corruption in Latin America. The creation of the new Miami ICS indicates that those circumstances are about to change, perhaps dramatically.
The opinions expressed in this post are those of the author in his or her individual capacity and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone else, including the entities with which the author is affiliated, the author`s employers, other contributors, FCPAméricas, or its advertisers. The information in the FCPAméricas blog is intended for public discussion and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide legal advice to its readers and does not create an attorney-client relationship. It does not seek to describe or convey the quality of legal services. FCPAméricas encourages readers to seek qualified legal counsel regarding anti-corruption laws or any other legal issue. FCPAméricas gives permission to link, post, distribute, or reference this article for any lawful purpose, provided attribution is made to the author and to FCPAméricas LLC.
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