The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York recently announced that Asante Kwaku Berko, a dual citizen of the United States and Ghana, was indicted for Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) and money laundering related violations stemming from his participation in a scheme to bribe Ghanaian government officials. On July 16, 2024, Berko was arraigned on the indictment in a federal court in Brooklyn after being extradited to New York from the United Kingdom. Berko had been arrested in the United Kingdom in November 2022 pursuant to an Interpol Diffusion Notice.
According to the indictment, from approximately December 2014 to March 2017, while serving as an executive director in the Investment Banking Division of a subsidiary of an unnamed U.S. financial institution, Berko and co-conspirators paid bribes to Ghanaian officials to ensure a Turkish energy company would win a bid to build and operate a power plant in Ghana. The Turkish energy company was a client of the U.S. financial institution at which Berko worked, and the U.S. financial institution planned to arrange the financing related to the power plant project. That U.S. financial institution also owned about 16% of the Turkish energy company.
Among the improper payments alleged in the indictment, Berko and an unnamed co-conspirator reportedly funded an all-expenses-paid trip to Turkey for government officials during which each official received a $5,000 bribe. Berko also sought reimbursement for the bribes from the Turkish energy company by allegedly issuing false invoices for “consultancy services,” according to the indictment.