Reuters photo
By
Ricardo Swire
The legendary Ralph Waldo Emerson candidly made the statement “money cost too much,” a principled philosophy that opposes sophisticated white collar criminals, who yield high financial returns from manipulative fraud and bribery schemes. The Caribbean islands, especially those offering offshore financial services, are used by international white collar masterminds as money laundering and payola platforms. Ng Lap Seng, chairman of the Sun Kian IP Group in Macau’s recently discovered multi-year bribery and money laundering schemes demonstrated the concept.
Caribbean internal security intelligence officials analyzed that in 2015 the Chinese corporate executive was a prominent character in an American political fundraising controversy known as “Chinagate,” related to the Democratic Party. From 1994 to 1996 the Macau based billionaire funnelled hundreds of thousands of dollars, through an Arkansas restaurateur to the Democratic National Committee, to help re-elect America’s president of the day.
New US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) records noted one occasion when the Macau real estate billionaire paid Antigua’s former Prime Minister US$100,000. The payola was provided shortly after the former Antiguan United Nations General Assembly President unofficially requested US$300,000 from the Chinese real estate tycoon. The Antiguan diplomat’s July 26, 2012 email read “these funds were intended as a show of good faith.”
Caribbean intelligence analysts noticed that in addition to Antigua’s former administration and former UN General Assembly President, Ng Lap Seng’s US$1.3 million bribe money was split with the Dominican Republic’s (DR) former deputy UN ambassador. In exchange Ng Lap Seng’s Real Estate Development Company would receive official support to construct a high-value UN Conference Center in Macau.
The FBI ascertained that part of the Ng Lap Seng Chairman’s Antigua bribery scheme guaranteed the Caribbean island’s UN General Assembly President would manipulate other UN decision makers to allocate the Macau Conference Center as main location for all UN events. The Chinese real estate billionaire also desired the Conference Center to be designated annual “Global South-South Development Expo” headquarters. The UN Office for South-South Cooperation usually rosters the event in different countries yearly.
In March 2015 Ng Lap Seng promised the United Nations US$5 million annually over three years. Bangladesh’s Permanent Representative to the UN, the President of the High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation, the UN Secretary General’s Envoy and Director of the UN Office for South-South Cooperation, together with Ng Lap Seng signed the formal document.
The sixty-nine year old Macau real estate mogul funnelled payola to the identified Antiguan and DR diplomats via cash and wire payments. He also funded the New York based South-South News which, thru the DR’s former deputy UN Ambassador, disbursed several bribe payments to the former Antiguan UN General Secretary President and his wife, a salaried South-South News consultant. South-South media is an electronic platform dedicated to promotion of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.
Subsequently the DR’s former UN Deputy Ambassador disbursed some bribe money from Macau to a DR located business associated with his brother. On March 9, 2016 senior FBI special agents swooped down on the DR’s former Deputy UN Ambassador. He was indicted on money laundering, conspiracy, failure to file US Federal tax returns and withholding foreign bank account information. In September 2015 FBI agents arrested Ng Lap Seng, but he was released the following month on US$50 million bail, the Chinese real estate billionaire allowed to live under twenty-four hour guard in a Midtown Manhattan luxury suite.
Ricardo Swire
Ricardo Swire is the Principal Consultant at R-L-H Security Consultants & Business Support Services and writes on a number of important issues.
No Comments Yet!
You can be first to comment this post!