"The World's most popular game is also its most corrupt, with investigations into match fixing ongoing in more than 25 countries. Here's a mere sampling of events since the beginning of last year: Operation Last Bet rocked the Italian Football Federation, with 22 clubs and 52 players awaiting trial for fixing matches; the Zimbabwe Football Association banned 80 players from its national-team selection due to similar accusations; Lu Jun, the first Chinese referee of a World Cup match, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for taking more than $128,000 in bribes to fix outcomes in the Chinese Super League; prosecutors charged 57 people with match fixing in the South Korean K-League, four of whom later died in suspected suicides; the team director of second-division Hungarian club REAC Budapest jumped off a building after six of his players were arrested for fixing games; and in an under-21 friendly, Turkmenistan reportedly beat Maldives 3-2 in a "ghost match" -- neither country knew about the contest because it never actually happened, yet bookmakers still took action and fixers still profited." [All the world is staged: Bribed players, fake games. Criminal syndicates can fix any match, anywhere.]
posted by vidur on May 24, 2012 - 34 comments

Despite evidence of extensive misconduct, English football coach Harry Redknapp remains beloved in the hearts and minds of football fans.
posted by reenum on Mar 4, 2012 - 41 comments

Five senior journalists and editors at the News International tabloid the Sun were arrested on Saturday along with three public officials as Operation Elveden, the British investigation into bribery of police by News International papers, broadened to include corruption of officials in the armed forces and Ministry of Defence as well. The Guardian reports that the new arrests escalate the stakes of the ongoing US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation of News Corporation, which carries potential penalties of millions of dollars of fines and prison sentences for senior executives. [more inside]
posted by strangely stunted trees on Feb 11, 2012 - 93 comments

People often think that other drivers are nuts. The Nigerian authorities have taken things a step further, now requiring drivers accused of going the wrong way down a one way street to get psychiatric exams.
posted by reenum on Jul 27, 2011 - 22 comments

"The paper puts forward a small but novel idea of how we can cut down the incidence of bribery. There are different kinds of bribes and what this paper is concerned with are bribes that people often have to give to get what they are legally entitled to. I shall call these 'harassment bribes'. Suppose an income tax refund is held back from a taxpayer till he pays some cash to the officer. Suppose government allots subsidized land to a person but when the person goes to get her paperwork done and receive documents for this land, she is asked to pay a hefty bribe. These are all illustrations of harassment bribes. Harassment bribery is widespread in India and it plays a large role in breeding inefficiency and has a corrosive effect on civil society. The central message of this paper is that we should declare the act of giving a bribe in all such cases as legitimate activity [PDF]. In other words the giver of a harassment bribe should have full immunity from any punitive action by the state." [more inside]
posted by vidur on Mar 31, 2011 - 37 comments

Arms dealers affiliated with 22 companies, including one with a former Joint Chief of Staff on its board of directors, have been indicted for soliciting kickbacks on multimillion dollar deals to supply munitions to representatives of a fictitious African government. [more inside]
posted by minimii on Jan 21, 2010 - 41 comments

"At 1am on June 19, police and funeral cars arrived at the hotel, wanting to take the body away. 2,000 Shishou residents blocked the hotel entrance to protect Xu's corpse."
posted by sswiller on Jun 21, 2009 - 38 comments

$20,000 bonus to official who agreed on nuke claim A former Energy Department intelligence chief who agreed with the White House claim that Iraq had reconstituted its defunct nuclear-arms program was awarded a total of $20,500 in bonuses during the build-up to the war, WorldNetDaily has learned...His officers argued at a pre-briefing at Energy headquarters that there was no hard evidence to support the alarming Iraq nuclear charge, and asked to join State Department's dissenting opinion, Energy officials say. Rider ordered them to "shut up and sit down," according to sources familiar with the meeting.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly on Aug 13, 2003 - 22 comments

Cheney tried to collect $60 million for Enron on a recent trip to India...
posted by snakey on Jan 18, 2002 - 26 comments

Global Corruption Report 2001 - if you're not depressed already, this will make you so.
posted by scotty on Oct 21, 2001 - 1 comment

Tanzania 9th most corrupt country , of course the word here is that they bribed transparency international to place them above kenya....... according to the director "HIV AIDS is killing millions of Africans, and in many of the countries where AIDS is at its deadliest the problem is compounded by the fact that corruption levels are seen to be very high. While it is imperative that richer countries provide the fruits of medical research at an affordable price to address this human tragedy, it is also essential that corrupt governments do not steal from their own people. This is now an urgent priority if lives are to be saved." local traditions don't help either. what this story does not say is that 4,000 girls will be circumsised at this ceremony and the govt/police won't interfere.
posted by quarsan on Jul 16, 2001 - 5 comments

Philipines President Estrada impeached The House has sent impeachment charges against the president to the Senate for trial, charging Estrada with taking millions of dollars in illegal payoffs. Mr Estrada has asserted that he has not received "a single centavo" from illegal gambling but he has acknowledged that he had been offered and refused a $4 million bribe.
posted by lagado on Nov 13, 2000 - 7 comments