Russia fights to protect curruption at UN

Washington Post:

Russia is seeking the ouster of a senior U.N. corruption investigator and his team of white-collar-crime specialists after they conducted hard-hitting probes into corruption by a Russian diplomat and another Russian national.

The move is aimed at thwarting efforts to retain members of the U.N. Procurement Task Force after its mandate expires at the end of the month. The United Nations had proposed integrating the task force into an expanded, permanent U.N. investigation division to strengthen the organization's capacity to investigate fraud.

U.S. officials characterized the Russian effort as part of a broader push by Moscow and members of the Group of 77 developing countries to kill off a unit that has carried out some of the organization's most aggressive investigations. The United States joined the European Union, South Korea and Switzerland on Tuesday in blocking the passage of a U.N. General Assembly resolution that would have placed restrictions on the unit's ability to serve as U.N. investigators.

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The task force was established in 2006 to look into allegations of corruption within the United Nations after Alexander Yakovlev, a U.N. purchasing officer from Russia, pleaded guilty to federal charges that he received hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from companies doing business with the United Nations. The case led to the conviction on similar charges of Russian diplomat Vladimir Kuznetsov, who headed the U.N.'s chief budget committee.

The task force chairman, Robert Appleton, and some of his staff were recruited from an investigative unit set up by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker to investigate corruption in the $64 billion U.N. oil-for-food program.

Since its creation, the task force has found corruption in contracts valued at more than $630 million, identified $25 million in losses, secured misconduct findings against 17 U.N. officials and provided evidence leading to the conviction of a senior procurement official. A U.N. audit said the task force served as a deterrent to wrongdoing and recommended that its expertise be preserved in a new expanded investigations division.

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Russia under Putin sometimes resembles a RICO organization, so it is not surprising that Russia would flinch when faced with someone enforcing the rule of law on UN transactions. This is an important enough issue to make it a defining decision for the UN. Whether it will allow itself to join modern Russia as a RICO organization is important.