U.S. prosecutors pressed charges on Friday against a Chinese-born woman for her alleged involvement in the scheme to bribe a former United Nations General Assembly president.
The woman was identified as 55-year-old Julia Vivi Wang, a business executive from China who reportedly paid at least $500,000 in bribes to acquire diplomatic positions with Antigua for her husband and another Chinese businessman.
New York Times reported that bribe was brokered through John W. Ashe, who served as the U.N. General Assembly president from 2013 to 2014, and Francis Lorenzo, deputy permanent representative for the Dominican Republic to the United Nations. Ashe was said to have facilitated more than $1.3 million in bribes through the scheme.
Ashe has engaged in corrupt practices since 2011, accepting bribes from Chinese businessmen who sought to influence the decisions of the United Nations and Antiguan officials.
The charges against Wang were filed two days after Lorenzo pleaded guilty to having to the corrupt practices and was suspended from office. Julia Vivi Wang, also known as Vivian Wang, was arrested on Thursday and charged in the complaint with money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering, Reuters wrote. She filed a $1.5 million bond and was subsequently released on Friday.
Wang served as vice president of the South-South News and International Organization for South-South Cooperation, both of which focus on covering and developing U.N.-related programs.
She particularly sought to buy positions in a Hong Kong investment office Antigua was putting up for her late husband and another Chinese businessman.
Francis Lorenzo revealed to U.S. authorities that Wang wanted to secure the positions because it would help them generate profit by helping others obtain citizenship through investing in a country. Wang and her conspirators would then arrange the business deals for interested investors.
Aside from facilitating the bribe payments from Wang, Lorenzo also help manage payments from Ng Lap Seng, a billionaire in Macau's real estate industry who was arrested on separate charges in February.
According to Deutsche Welle, John Ashe's arrest and the discovery of the scheme came as a shock to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, who was "deeply troubled" by the findings.
"Corruption is not business as usual at the UN," U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric commented.
Dujarric also said Ban Ki Moon has organized a task force that will look into the issue and publish recommendations on how to improve and bolster transparency in the office to avoid a recurrence of the incident.
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