[thebassist]

Although in this day and age, real investigative journalism seems to be a dying art, I stumbled upon a fascinating series of articles (released today) about the role of an (until now) relatively unknown oil consulting firm known as UnaOil in massive corruption all over the world, where they were paid millions of dollars by huge international companies (such as Rolls Royce, Halliburton and Siemens) to secure lucrative government contracts.

It appears that this scoop was done by an investigative team employed by Fairfax Media and our good friends, the Huffington Post, which managed to secure hundreds of thousands of incriminating emails from all levels of the company from the last decade, and decipher the different codewords and codenames that were used to describe all levels of the business that was conducted.

There are a number of articles out today that cover the operations of this family-owned company in the Middle-East, the first set of articles from a three-day series which will cover their activities across the globe.

I'll quote the first section of the first article, and link the the remaining four articles below:

Enjoy the story!

Quote:

A massive leak of confidential documents has for the first time exposed the true extent of corruption within the oil industry, implicating dozens of leading companies, bureaucrats and politicians in a sophisticated global web of bribery and graft.

After a six-month investigation across two continents, Fairfax Media and The Huffington Post can reveal that billions of dollars of government contracts were awarded as the direct result of bribes paid on behalf of firms including British icon Rolls-Royce, US giant Halliburton, Australia’s Leighton Holdings and Korean heavyweights Samsung and Hyundai.

The investigation centres on a Monaco company called Unaoil, run by the jet-setting Ahsani clan. Following a coded ad in a French newspaper, a series of clandestine meetings and midnight phone calls led to our reporters obtaining hundreds of thousands of the Ahsanis’ leaked emails and documents.

The trove reveals how they rub shoulders with royalty, party in style, mock anti-corruption agencies and operate a secret network of fixers and middlemen throughout the world’s oil producing nations.

Corruption in oil production - one of the world's richest industries and one that touches us all through our reliance on petrol - fuels inequality, robs people of their basic needs and causes social unrest in some of the world's poorest countries. It was among the factors that prompted the Arab Spring.

Fairfax Media and The Huffington Post today reveal how Unaoil carved up portions of the Middle East oil industry for the benefit of western companies between 2002 and 2012.

In part two we will turn to the impoverished former Russian states to reveal the extent of misbehaviour by multinational companies including Halliburton. We will conclude the three-part investigation by showing how corrupt practices have extended deep into Asia and Africa.

The leaked files expose as corrupt two Iraqi oil ministers, a fixer linked to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, senior officials from Libya’s Gaddafi regime, Iranian oil figures, powerful officials in the United Arab Emirates and a Kuwaiti operator known as “the big cheese”.

Western firms involved in Unaoil’s Middle East operation include some of the world’s wealthiest and most respected companies: Rolls-Royce and Petrofac from Britain; US companies FMC Technologies, Cameron and Weatherford; Italian giants Eni and Saipem; German companies MAN Turbo (now know as MAN Diesal & Turbo) and Siemens; Dutch firm SBM Offshore; and Indian giant Larsen & Toubro. They also show the offshore arm of Australian company Leighton Holdings was involved in serious, calculated corruption.

The leaked files reveal that some people in these firms believed they were hiring a genuine lobbyist, and others who knew or suspected they were funding bribery simply turned a blind eye.

But some knew much more. A handful of senior insiders at firms such as Spanish company Tecnicas Reunidas, French firm Technip and drilling giant MI-SWACO, not only actively supported bribery but pocketed their own kickbacks; US defence giant Honeywell and Australia’s Leighton Offshore agreed to hide bribes inside fraudulent contracts in Iraq; a Rolls-Royce manager negotiated a monthly kickback for leaking information from inside the British firm.

Many of those revealed to have been culpable, including the wealthy Ahsani family itself, which runs Unaoil, continue to operate with impunity.

The files expose the betrayal of ordinary people in the Middle East. After Saddam Hussein was toppled, the US declared Iraq’s oil would be managed to benefit the Iraqi people. Today, in part one of the ‘Global Bribe Factory’ expose, that claim is demolished.

Continued:
http://www.theage.com.au/interactive/201...world.html

The remaining articles:

Who are the Ahsanis:

How the West bought Iraq:

The Libyan Oil Industry under Gaddafi:

Syria


The Securing contracts in the UAE

Securing Contracts in Yemen

Securing Contracts in Iran


Some Key themes:

• These guys have been operating since 2001 without drawing significant attention to themselves. It's no coincidence that it is a family-run organization!
• Securing a contract from high level government officials is a delicate courting process- besides throwing money at some of these high-level government officials, you can tell they made an effort to make personal connections to these guys by spending time with them, taking them out all over the world, and buying gifts that would be appreciated.
• Despite the Americans making noises about strict measures against corruption in the bidding process for massive oil contracts, the UnaOil guys still managed to slither their way in and nurture relations with some of the rising stars in the post-Saddam Iraqi Goverment. The willingness of some of these politicians to sell out their country to all of these foreign companies also shows how deeply corruption (or baksheesh culture, as it could be called) is engrained in the region.
• Not that it should be a surprise, but all of the companies who used UnaOil as a middleman to secure contracts maintain their ignorance and innoncence in any corruption going on behind the scenes. It just goes to show that the big dogs don't give a fuck about ethics as long as they can secure their profits.