I have long been a critic of the Swiss banking system. The world has basically turned a blind eye to a huge graft system. Money was loaned from the international banks,the IMF, or the World Bank at 8% to a African country. The money was stolen by corrupt dictators and banked in Switzerland at 5%, the Swiss then lent the money back to the international banking system at 8%, pocketing the 3% difference. The Swiss and other even shadier offshore banking centers have been the biggest enablers of corruption in the world. But that's a story for another day. This is a story of simple bribery.
US investigators have traced $150m in bribes given to Nigerian officials to Swiss banks, Nigeria's justice minister has said. I'm surprised that this story has been ignored by the traditional media in the US but not by the BBC.
Michael Kase Aondoakaa said the money was part of $180m in bribes given by US construction company Halliburton to Nigerian officials.
The Nigerian government says it has asked the US to release the names of officials who negotiated the bribes.
Halliburton admitted paying the bribes to top officials between 1994 and 2004.
"We have discovered that $150 million of the bribe money is in Zurich. That is the first shocking discovery. The entire money is $180 million. $150 million is already trapped in Zurich," Mr Aondoakaa said.
I would love to point out who was in charge of Halliburton between 1994 and 2000. But Of course he would have "known nothing about this". CEO can lose $100 million dollars and not notice it, and the business press just goes along and accepts this. Even though Stanley was appointed by Dick Cheney and the two were close friends they had no idea what each other were doing.
Halliburton and its engineering subsidiary Kellogg Brown Root negotiated bribes with "three successive holders of a top-level office in the executive branch of the government of Nigeria" during that time, according to the plea agreement the company made with the US Department of Justice.
The Nigerian government has come under pressure from the media to follow up the findings of the US court and prosecute the Nigerian bribe-takers.
Mr Aondoakaa said they had requested the court unseal the judgement and pass on the names of the officials.
Albert "Jack" Stanley, the former chief executive of KBR who pleaded guilty to making the bribes in order to secure $6bn in contracts, is to be sentenced on 6 May.
KBR has agreed to pay more than $402m in fines, of which Halliburton, as the former parent company, agreed to pay $302
O but wait guess what this story may have legs. A former Halliburton exec has pleaded guilty to being in cahoots with crooked foreign officials. He's now helping US investigators, and a much wider crackdown is expected to unfold.
Stanley has already acknowledged paying bribes to unnamed senior Nigerian officials, although reports have identified the primary recipient as Nigeria’s late president, Sani Abacha. Stanley also has admitted receiving kickbacks of $10.8 million from contracts that Halliburton and predecessor companies signed with governments in Nigeria, Malaysia, Egypt and Yemen. Government officials in those countries, with the exception of Abacha, have not yet been implicated, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
Stanley's testimony may also pose concerns for Vice President Dick Cheney, who ran Halliburton between 1995 and 2000, when Stanley was appointed as KBR's chief executive officer. Cheney has consistently denied wrongdoing.
Law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation said that in previous interviews, Stanley repeatedly said that then-CEO Cheney had no knowledge of the bribes. At the time, however, Stanley was not a cooperating witness, a stance that changed in June when he was confronted with evidence of his involvement in the bribery scheme.
The vice president's office declined to comment, citing the continuing litigation.
More co-conspirators are being arrested. UK police have arrested a London lawyer accused of moving millions of dollars in bribes to Nigerian officials to win contracts for a US construction firm. That means more chances to flip people.
A federal grand jury in Texas charged Jeffrey Tesler, 60, with helping channel money from Kellogg, Brown and Root, a former Halliburton subsidiary.
He was arrested after an extradition request from the US authorities.
It is alleged he channelled money to Nigerian officials, to obtain contracts valued at more than $6bn (£4bn).
I have continued to try and find the names of the Swiss banks in question, but I haven't been able to track them down yet. I will keep everyone posted on this story. Call me jaded but I'm hoping there is a sex scandal or sexy banker involved. That is about the only way international corruption of bribery will get noticed.