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2 Case Studies of Anti-Corruption Initiatives
Pages 25-42

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From page 25...
... The material in this chapter draws on historical and recent media, presentations that were given at the committee's workshop, and information on popular anticorruption tools to illustrate efforts to combat corruption across several countries. While a review of the police's role in these anti-corruption initiatives (as well as in other studies of efforts to bring corrupt officials to justice)
From page 26...
... Edgar Hoover led the FBI without visible ordinary corruption for 48 years, there is extensive evidence that he used public investigative resources to pursue private interests -- the definition of high-level corruption employed in this report. Exposure of FBI misconduct through Congressional hearings conducted after Hoover's death led to the appoint­ment of the first (retired)
From page 27...
... 142) prosecutors of civil-law countries must receive more attention in that they generally initiate criminal investigations, command police officers during the investigations, terminate the criminal cases at their disposal, and indict the criminal suspects for trials in the centralized and inquisitorial criminal justice system (e.g.
From page 28...
... Brazil In their recently translated book, Operation Car Wash: Brazil's Institu tionalised Crime and the Inside Story of the Biggest Corruption Scandal in History, Jorge Pontes and Márcio Anselmo provide details from their time with Operação Lava Jato (Operation Car Wash) as part of the Brazilian Federal Police (Pontes and Anselmo, 2022)
From page 29...
... , years of prioritizing a war on drugs had diverted federal police resources towards lower priority cases and away from anti-corruption investigations of Brazilian institutions, which is a mandate of the Federal Police. In February 2021, Attorney General Agusto Aras dismantled the Opera­ tion Car Wash task force (Mota Prado and De Assis Macado, 2022)
From page 30...
... . The Commission was classified as a hybrid mechanism because it was an independent investigative entity operating under State law, working alongside the Guatemalan justice system to build capacity within the country's judicial and security institutions (The Washington Office on Latin America, 2015)
From page 31...
... . During its operation, CICIG supported complex cases that helped bring charges against multiple criminal networks and hundreds of current and former government officials including two former presidents, Supreme Court jus tices, members of congress, and multiple ministers, police chiefs, and mili tary officers (Lakhani, 2015)
From page 32...
... International Courts Other examples of successful prosecution of high-level country leaders can be found in several cases brought before international courts. Based on evidence collected by field investigators and prosecutors in Sarajevo and Srebrenica, the life sentence of Serbian military leader Ratko Mladic was upheld in a June 2021 appellate ruling at the International Criminal Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
From page 33...
... TACKLING SYSTEMIC CORRUPTION In many countries, there are ongoing efforts to minimize and r­educe harm from systemic corruption within public institutions. The ones presented here include dedicated work and investment in Italy, Malawi, Uganda, and Nigeria.
From page 34...
... While there is no research evidence on the role of law enforcement in reducing this corruption, there is a fair amount of research documenting the judicially-led investigations against politicians.6 Public prosecutors were assisted in their investigations and arrests by the judicial police working under their supervision. These police were instrumental in seizing records and making arrests while working closely with prosecutors.
From page 35...
... emphasized that it is rarely one approach that leads to an outcome: rather, the success of anti-corruption campaigns seems related to using multiple policy and institutional instruments simultaneously. Malawi During her presentation to the committee, Brigitte Seim, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, discussed a Malawi Centre for Social ­Research study from 2010.
From page 36...
... There is limited empirical evidence on the effect of existing interventions, so efforts should aim to provide possible tangible interventions for future research and pilots. Considering these parameters, Seim presented a typology of police roles in anti-corruption work, across the corruption life cycle (see Figure 2-2)
From page 37...
... One encouraging piece of evidence Seim cited is in the Malawi Corruption Hotline. While many complaints to this hotline are one-off ­exchanges that are more minor in nature, a portion of complaints do per tain to high-level corruption.
From page 38...
... At the workshop, Seim emphasized that these efforts involved many different stakeholders, including doctors, pharmacists, public health offi­ cials, auditors, lawyers, information communication technology officials, police officers, and support staff. These efforts centered on a high-profile strategy developed by the government that prioritized publicized anti corruption raids across the country's healthcare institutions (Peiffer et al., 2020)
From page 39...
... . Law enforcement organizations around the world, with varying levels of ICT infrastructure and resources, are taking advantage of ICTs to provide policing services, including mobile technologies, web applications, messaging services, location services, and social network sites (Thoyyib, 2019)
From page 40...
... Political and bureaucratic corruption has plagued Nigeria for decades, causing enormous damage across multiple sectors and agencies and obstructing the delivery of effective and efficient public services within the country (Abdulkareem, Ishola, and Abdulkareem, 2021; Nageri, Umar, and Abdul, 2013)
From page 41...
... But successful cases included some common elements, tailored as necessary to their individual context. These common elements included the following features: • stakeholders mobilization; • police collaboration with other sectors such as justice, health care, or finance; • improving information collection, such as opening hotlines and tiplines; • changing political factors, such as new leadership or enacted legis lation; and • allowing time for progress.
From page 42...
... It is very difficult to fight corruption without political support. While efforts can be made to change policing tactics or technologies without support from the head of state, it cannot guarantee success in combatting high-level corruption.


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