Public corruption, the FBI’s top criminal investigative priority, poses a fundamental threat to our national security and way of life. It can affect everything from how well our borders are secured and our neighborhoods protected to how verdicts are handed down in courts to how public infrastructure such as roads and schools are built. It also takes a significant toll on the public’s pocketbooks by siphoning off tax dollars—it is estimated that public corruption costs the U.S. government and the public billions of dollars each year. The FBI is uniquely situated to combat corruption, with the skills and capabilities to run complex undercover operations and surveillance.
Overview
The Bureau’s Public Corruption program focuses on:
- Investigating violations of federal law by public officials at the federal, state, and local levels of government;
- Overseeing the nationwide investigation of allegations of fraud related to federal government procurement, contracts, and federally funded programs;
- Combating the threat of public corruption along the nation’s borders and points of entry in order to decrease the country’s vulnerability to drug and weapons trafficking, alien smuggling, espionage, and terrorism.
- Addressing environmental crime, election fraud, and matters concerning the federal government procurement, contracts, and federally funded programs.
In 2008, the FBI created the International Corruption Unit (ICU) to oversee the increasing number of investigations involving global fraud against the U.S. government and the corruption of federal public officials outside of the continental U.S. involving U.S. funds, persons, businesses, etc. The ICU’s tasks include:
- Overseeing the Bureau’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and antitrust cases;
- Maintaining operational oversight of several International Contract Corruption Task Forces, which investigate and prosecute individuals and firms engaged in bribery, illegal gratuities, contract extortion, bid rigging, collusion, conflicts of interest, product substitution, items and/or services invoiced without delivery, theft, diversion of goods, and individual and corporate conspiracies on every level of U.S. government operations.
No other law enforcement agency has attained the kind of success the FBI has achieved in combating corruption. This success is due largely to the cooperation and coordination from a number of federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies to combat public corruption. These partnerships include, but are not limited to the Department of Justice, Agency Offices of Inspector General; law enforcement agencies’ internal affairs divisions; federal, state and local law enforcement and regulatory investigative agencies; and state and county prosecutor’s offices.
Prison Corruption
The FBI’s prison corruption initiative, which began in June 2014, addresses contraband smuggling by local, state, and federal prison officials in exchange for bribe payments. Through this initiative, the Bureau works to develop and strengthen collaborative relationships with state/local corrections departments and the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Inspector General to help identify prison facilities plagued with systemic corruption and employ appropriate criminal investigative techniques to combat the threat. Prison officials and staff being co-opted, even if unwittingly, betrays the public trust, threatens the integrity of the justice system in the U.S., and threaten national security interests overall.
Schemes to corrupt prison officials come in a variety of forms, including:
- Testing: An offer of simple items, like prison commissary goods, is made to prison officials. If accepted, the inmate confirms the official’s administrative misstep, then urges the official to smuggle contraband under threat of reporting the official’s misconduct.
- Active recruiting: Civilian gang members with no prior criminal history are recruited by incarcerated gang members to apply to become correctional officers, with promises of additional income paid by the inmates’ criminal enterprise.
- Empathy: Prison inmates study corrections personnel working in the facility and determine whether particular staff members are susceptible to exploitation. This ploy typically results in improper interpersonal relationships and the corrupted official’s integrity being compromised to the benefit of the inmate.
Border Corruption
The federal government is responsible for protecting approximately 7,000 miles along the U.S. border and 95,000 miles of U.S. shoreline, and every day, over a million people visit the U.S. and enter through one of the more than 300 official ports of entry into the U.S., as well as through seaports and international airports. The FBI recognizes the very real threat public corruption at our nation’s borders and all other ports of entry pose.
Common acts of border corruption involve drug trafficking and alien smuggling. Throughout the U.S., the FBI has investigated corrupt government and law enforcement officials who accept bribes and gratuities in return for allowing loads of drugs or aliens to pass through ports of entry or checkpoints; protecting and escorting loads of contraband; overlooking contraband; providing needed documents, such as immigration papers and driver’s licenses; leaking sensitive law enforcement information; and conducting unauthorized records checks.
Border corruption potentially impacts national security as well—corrupt officers might believe they are accepting a bribe simply in return for allowing a carload of illegal aliens to enter the U.S., when they might actually be facilitating the entry of a group of terrorists. Or a corrupt official who expedites immigration paperwork or helps obtain an identification document in return for a bribe or gratuity might actually be facilitating an operation of a terrorist cell, foreign counterintelligence network, or criminal enterprise.
Oftentimes the Bureau brings its expertise to bear on joint investigations with its partners in federal, state, and local law enforcement. Many of these investigations involve FBI border corruption task forces and working groups located in nearly two dozen cities along our borders. Members of these task forces and working groups stand shoulder to shoulder to combat corrupt officials, both operationally and through the sharing of intelligence and information, along with the use of trend analysis, lessons learned, and best practices.
Federally, the FBI coordinates investigative efforts along the borders with the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General; Customs and Border Protection Internal Affairs; Transportation Security Administration; Drug Enforcement Administration; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-Office of Professional Responsibility.
International Corruption
The FBI’s International Corruption Unit (ICU) is the leading investigative entity in combating foreign corruption. ICU manages five programs:
- Foreign Bribery/Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)
- Foreign Corruption/Kleptocracy Program
- Antitrust
- International Fraud Against the Government
- International Corruption of Federal Public Officials
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
ICU has management responsibility and program oversight for FBI investigations under the FCPA. The 1977 legislation has two main provisions. The first deals with bribery of foreign officials, and the second deals with accounting transparency requirements under the Securities Exchange Act. The dual elements were designed to facilitate parallel criminal and civil enforcement to stem corruption and promote fair business practices worldwide. The anti-bribery provision makes it illegal for U.S. companies and certain foreign companies to bribe foreign officials to obtain or retain business. The bribes can be in the form of money or any other items of value. The accounting provision of the FCPA focuses on the Securities Exchange Act requirements applying to all foreign companies whose securities are listed on the U.S. stock exchanges and U.S. companies.
The United States cannot charge the foreign official under the FCPA; rather, the United States works together with international law enforcement partners to investigate U.S. subjects who are complicit in paying bribes to foreign officials. The supply and demand equation of bribe paying and receiving illustrates the FCPA and kleptocracy violations as two sides of the same coin. For more information, see this detailed FCPA Resource Guide.
Kleptocracy
Kleptocracy, literally meaning "the rule by thieves," is a form of political corruption in which the ruling government seeks personal gain and status at the expense of the governed. Through graft and embezzlement of state funds, corrupt leaders amass tremendous wealth at the expense of the broader populace. Some of the most egregious examples have occurred in countries with very high rates of poverty. The inherent challenge for corrupt leaders is covertly expatriating and holding money in secure locations where it can be accessed in the future. Generally, that requires international movement of funds. When transfers occur in U.S. dollars or transit the U.S. banking system, federal money laundering jurisdiction is established. The FBI initiates money laundering investigations to trace the international movement of assets and, in conjunction with foreign partners, forfeit and repatriate assets back to legitimate authorities in victim countries.
Antitrust
ICU has program management responsibility for the FBI’s antitrust investigations, both domestic and international, which target conspiracies among competitors to fix prices, rig bids, or allocate markets or customers. These conspiracies deprive U.S. consumers of true competition, an economic bedrock of our free and democratic society. Perpetrators often operate in multinational companies that bask in illegal profits at the expense of U.S. consumers. Stolen by cartels, the ill-gotten gains and competitive advantages reduce supply, eliminate incentives to compete by offering better and more innovative products and services, and destabilize economic markets.
International Contract Corruption
ICU has program management responsibility over cases involving international fraud against the government and international corruption of federal public officials. The FBI was a co-founder of the International Contract Corruption Task Force, which was created in 2006 with the goal of addressing contract fraud concerns. These concerns stemmed from overseas U.S. government spending during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. These cases typically involve bribery, gratuities, contract extortion, bid rigging, collusion, conflicts of interest, product substitution, items/services invoiced without delivery, diversion of goods, and corporate and individual conspiracies at various levels of U.S. government operations.
ICU’s program extends beyond the war effort to include worldwide contingency operations involving U.S. military actions, foreign aid and development, and humanitarian aid in any international region. Spending on these programs is highly susceptible to corruption and fraud by those wishing to take advantage of the chaotic circumstances surrounding these benevolent endeavors. Misuse of U.S. funds overseas poses a threat to the United States and other countries by promoting corruption within the host nation, damaging diplomatic relations, inadvertently supporting insurgent activity, and potentially strengthening criminal and terrorist organizations.
International Anti-Corruption Coordination Centre
The FBI works with multiple law enforcement partners from around the world as part of the International Anti-Corruption Coordination Centre (IACCC). Established in 2017, the IACCC is a coordinated and collaborative effort to provide information, assistance and other support to agencies investigating public corruption offenses.
IACCC Participants
- Australia: Australian Federal Police
- Canada: Royal Canadian Mounted Police
- Interpol
- New Zealand: Serious Fraud Office, New Zealand Police
- Singapore: Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau
- United Kingdom: National Crime Agency
- United States: FBI, DHS (ICE, HSI)
Learn More
International Corruption Squads
The international corruption squads (ICS), based in Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, and Washington, D.C., were created to address the national impact of foreign bribery, kleptocracy, and antitrust schemes. These schemes negatively affect U.S. financial markets and economic growth when inadequately addressed. They are unique in nature in that they are international matters with the overt criminal acts typically occurring outside U.S. borders. Without these dedicated resources, it was difficult for FBI divisions to investigate international matters that did not directly affect their area of responsibility as clearly as other violations; therefore, the FBI created four international corruption squads to enable a focus on international corruption matters without draining resources from the field.
The ICS are a vital resource to combat international cartels and corruption. The violations addressed by the ICS are equally recognized by both DOJ and the FBI as risks to U.S. national interests. These squads not only lend additional resources to a global threat, but they also allow the FBI to attack the matters and use sophisticated investigative techniques that have long been successfully utilized by the FBI to address complex criminal matters.
Private Sector Outreach
In an effort to combat international corruption and cartels, the FBI’s ICU created a proactive strategy that places an emphasis on strengthening existing relationships and forging new partnerships in the private sector. This is not new to the FBI. We have leveraged relationships throughout our 100+ years of investigations—from fighting organized crime to combating terrorism. Nonetheless, we believe by fostering these vital relationships, the FBI will be able to effectively fight international corruption to ensure a fair and competitive global market environment for companies resulting in a strong U.S. economy.
- 12.16.2020 — Former Venezuelan National Treasurer and Her Spouse Charged in Connection with International Bribery and Money Laundering Scheme
- 12.15.2020 — Santa Ana Police Officer Agrees to Plead Guilty to Bribery Charge
- 12.14.2020 — Two Georgia Women Charged with Bribing Former Supervisor in DeKalb County’s Tax Commissioner’s Office
- 12.14.2020 — The United States Reaches a Settlement with the United Auto Workers Union to Reform the Union and End Corruption and Fraud
- 12.14.2020 — Former Defense Department Official Arrested on Federal Charges of Taking Cash to Aid Contractor’s Request for $6.4 Million Payment
- 12.14.2020 — Chief of Staff to Former Fall River Mayor Enters Guilty Plea
- 12.11.2020 — Factory Manager at USP-Marion Pleads Guilty After Hiding Outside Payments From Government Contractor
- 12.11.2020 — Manager at Queens Not-for-Profit Pleads Guilty to Wire Fraud
