WEBVTT

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When we talk about corruption,

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there are typical types
of individuals that spring to mind.

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There's the former Soviet megalomaniacs.

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Saparmurat Niyazov, he was one of them.

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Until his death in 2006,

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he was the all-powerful
leader of Turkmenistan,

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a Central Asian country
rich in natural gas.

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Now, he really loved to issue
presidential decrees.

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And one renamed the months of the year

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including after himself and his mother.

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He spent millions of dollars

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creating a bizarre personality cult,

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and his crowning glory was the building

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of a 40-foot-high gold-plated
statue of himself

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which stood proudly
in the capital's central square

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and rotated to follow the sun.

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He was a slightly unusual guy.

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And then there's that cliché,

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the African dictator
or minister or official.

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There's Teodorín Obiang.

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So his daddy is president
for life of Equatorial Guinea,

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a West African nation that has exported

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billions of dollars of oil since the 1990s

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and yet has a truly appalling
human rights record.

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The vast majority of its people

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are living in really miserable poverty

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despite an income
per capita that's on a par

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with that of Portugal.

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So Obiang junior, well, he buys himself

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a $30 million mansion
in Malibu, California.

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I've been up to its front gates.

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I can tell you it's a magnificent spread.

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He bought an €18 million art collection

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that used to belong to fashion
designer Yves Saint Laurent,

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a stack of fabulous sports cars,

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some costing a million dollars apiece --

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oh, and a Gulfstream jet, too.

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Now get this:

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Until recently, he was earning
an official monthly salary

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of less than 7,000 dollars.

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And there's Dan Etete.

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Well, he was the former
oil minister of Nigeria

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under President Abacha,

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and it just so happens
he's a convicted money launderer too.

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We've spent a great deal of time

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investigating a $1 billion --

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that's right, a $1 billion —

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oil deal that he was involved with,

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and what we found was pretty shocking,

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but more about that later.

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So it's easy to think
that corruption happens

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somewhere over there,

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carried out by a bunch of greedy despots

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and individuals up to no good in countries

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that we, personally, may
know very little about

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and feel really unconnected to

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and unaffected by what might be going on.

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But does it just happen over there?

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Well, at 22, I was very lucky.

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My first job out of university

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was investigating the illegal
trade in African ivory.

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And that's how my relationship
with corruption really began.

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In 1993, with two friends
who were colleagues,

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Simon Taylor and Patrick Alley,

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we set up an organization
called Global Witness.

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Our first campaign
was investigating the role

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of illegal logging in funding
the war in Cambodia.

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So a few years later, and it's now 1997,

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and I'm in Angola undercover
investigating blood diamonds.

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Perhaps you saw the film,

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the Hollywood film "Blood Diamond,"

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the one with Leonardo DiCaprio.

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Well, some of that sprang from our work.

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Luanda, it was full of land mine victims

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who were struggling
to survive on the streets

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and war orphans living
in sewers under the streets,

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and a tiny, very wealthy elite

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who gossiped about shopping
trips to Brazil and Portugal.

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And it was a slightly crazy place.

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So I'm sitting in a hot
and very stuffy hotel room

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feeling just totally overwhelmed.

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But it wasn't about blood diamonds.

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Because I'd been speaking
to lots of people there

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who, well, they talked
about a different problem:

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that of a massive web
of corruption on a global scale

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and millions of oil dollars going missing.

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And for what was then
a very small organization

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of just a few people,

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trying to even begin to think
how we might tackle that

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was an enormous challenge.

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And in the years that I've been,

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and we've all been campaigning
and investigating,

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I've repeatedly seen
that what makes corruption

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on a global, massive scale possible,

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well it isn't just greed
or the misuse of power

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or that nebulous phrase "weak governance."

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I mean, yes, it's all of those,

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but corruption, it's made
possible by the actions

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of global facilitators.

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So let's go back to some of those
people I talked about earlier.

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Now, they're all people
we've investigated,

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and they're all people who couldn't
do what they do alone.

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Take Obiang junior. Well, he didn't end up

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with high-end art and luxury
houses without help.

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He did business with global banks.

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A bank in Paris held accounts
of companies controlled by him,

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one of which was used to buy the art,

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and American banks, well, they funneled

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73 million dollars into the States,

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some of which was used to buy
that California mansion.

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And he didn't do all of this
in his own name either.

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He used shell companies.

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He used one to buy
the property, and another,

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which was in somebody else's name,

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to pay the huge bills it
cost to run the place.

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And then there's Dan Etete.

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Well, when he was oil minister,

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he awarded an oil block now
worth over a billion dollars

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to a company that, guess what, yeah,

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he was the hidden owner of.

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Now, it was then much later traded on

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with the kind assistance
of the Nigerian government --

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now I have to be careful what I say here —

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to subsidiaries of Shell
and the Italian Eni,

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two of the biggest oil companies around.

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So the reality is,
is that the engine of corruption,

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well, it exists far
beyond the shores of countries

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like Equatorial Guinea
or Nigeria or Turkmenistan.

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This engine, well, it's driven

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by our international banking system,

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by the problem of anonymous
shell companies,

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and by the secrecy that we have afforded

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big oil, gas and mining operations,

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and, most of all, by the failure
of our politicians

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to back up their rhetoric and do something

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really meaningful and systemic
to tackle this stuff.

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Now let's take the banks first.

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Well, it's not going
to come as any surprise

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for me to tell you that banks
accept dirty money,

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but they prioritize their profits
in other destructive ways too.

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For example, in Sarawak, Malaysia.

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Now this region, it has just five percent

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of its forests left intact. Five percent.

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So how did that happen?

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Well, because an elite
and its facilitators

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have been making millions of dollars

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from supporting logging
on an industrial scale

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for many years.

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So we sent an undercover investigator in

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to secretly film meetings
with members of the ruling elite,

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and the resulting footage, well,
it made some people very angry,

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and you can see that on YouTube,

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but it proved what we had long suspected,

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because it showed
how the state's chief minister,

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despite his later denials,

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used his control over land
and forest licenses

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to enrich himself and his family.

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And HSBC, well, we know
that HSBC bankrolled

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the region's largest logging companies

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that were responsible
for some of that destruction

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in Sarawak and elsewhere.

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The bank violated its own
sustainability policies in the process,

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but it earned around 130 million dollars.

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Now shortly after our exposé,

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very shortly after our exposé
earlier this year,

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the bank announced
a policy review on this.

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And is this progress? Maybe,

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but we're going to be
keeping a very close eye

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on that case.

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And then there's the problem
of anonymous shell companies.

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Well, we've all heard
about what they are, I think,

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and we all know they're used quite a bit

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by people and companies
who are trying to avoid

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paying their proper dues to society,

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also known as taxes.

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But what doesn't usually come to light

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is how shell companies are used to steal

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huge sums of money,
transformational sums of money,

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from poor countries.

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In virtually every case of corruption
that we've investigated,

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shell companies have appeared,

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and sometimes
it's been impossible to find out

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who is really involved in the deal.

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A recent study by the World Bank

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looked at 200 cases of corruption.

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It found that over 70
percent of those cases

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had used anonymous shell companies,

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totaling almost 56 billion dollars.

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Now many of these
companies were in America

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or the United Kingdom,

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its overseas territories
and Crown dependencies,

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and so it's not just an offshore problem,

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it's an on-shore one too.

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You see, shell companies, they're central

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to the secret deals which may
benefit wealthy elites

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rather than ordinary citizens.

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One striking recent case
that we've investigated

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is how the government
in the Democratic Republic of Congo

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sold off a series of valuable,
state-owned mining assets

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to shell companies
in the British Virgin Islands.

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So we spoke to sources in country,

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trawled through company
documents and other information

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trying to piece together a really
true picture of the deal.

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And we were alarmed to find
that these shell companies

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had quickly flipped many of the assets on

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for huge profits to major
international mining companies

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listed in London.

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Now, the Africa Progress
Panel, led by Kofi Annan,

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they've calculated
that Congo may have lost

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more than 1.3 billion dollars
from these deals.

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That's almost twice

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the country's annual health
and education budget combined.

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And will the people of Congo,
will they ever get their money back?

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Well, the answer to that question,

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and who was really involved
and what really happened,

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well that's going to probably
remain locked away

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in the secretive company registries
of the British Virgin Islands

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and elsewhere unless we all do
something about it.

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And how about the oil, gas
and mining companies?

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Okay, maybe it's a bit
of a cliché to talk about them.

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Corruption in that sector, no surprise.

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There's corruption everywhere,
so why focus on that sector?

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Well, because there's a lot at stake.

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In 2011, natural resource exports

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outweighed aid flows by almost 19 to one

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in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Nineteen to one.

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Now that's a hell of a lot
of schools and universities

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and hospitals and business startups,

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many of which haven't
materialized and never will

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because some of that money
has simply been stolen away.

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Now let's go back to the oil
and mining companies,

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and let's go back to Dan Etete
and that $1 billion deal.

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And now forgive me, I'm
going to read the next bit

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because it's a very live
issue, and our lawyers

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have been through this in some detail

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and they want me to get it right.

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Now, on the surface, the deal
appeared straightforward.

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Subsidiaries of Shell and Eni

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paid the Nigerian
government for the block.

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The Nigerian government transferred

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precisely the same amount,
to the very dollar,

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to an account earmarked
for a shell company

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whose hidden owner was Etete.

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Now, that's not bad going
for a convicted money launderer.

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And here's the thing.

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After many months of digging around

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and reading through hundreds
of pages of court documents,

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we found evidence that, in fact,

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Shell and Eni had known that the funds

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would be transferred
to that shell company,

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and frankly, it's hard
to believe they didn't know

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who they were really dealing with there.

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Now, it just shouldn't take
these sorts of efforts

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to find out where the money
in deals like this went.

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I mean, these are state assets.

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They're supposed to be
used for the benefit

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of the people in the country.

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But in some countries,
citizens and journalists

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who are trying to expose stories like this

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have been harassed and arrested

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and some have even risked
their lives to do so.

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And finally, well, there
are those who believe

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that corruption is unavoidable.

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It's just how some business is done.

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It's too complex and difficult to change.

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So in effect, what? We just accept it.

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But as a campaigner and investigator,

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I have a different view,

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because I've seen what can happen

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when an idea gains momentum.

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In the oil and mining sector, for example,

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there is now the beginning

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of a truly worldwide transparency standard

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that could tackle some of these problems.

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In 1999, when Global Witness called

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for oil companies to make
payments on deals transparent,

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well, some people laughed
at the extreme naiveté

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of that small idea.

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But literally hundreds
of civil society groups

00:13:19.976 --> 00:13:21.830
from around the world came together

00:13:21.854 --> 00:13:23.439
to fight for transparency,

00:13:23.463 --> 00:13:27.420
and now it's fast becoming
the norm and the law.

00:13:27.444 --> 00:13:29.392
Two thirds of the value

00:13:29.416 --> 00:13:31.712
of the world's oil and mining companies

00:13:31.736 --> 00:13:35.483
are now covered by transparency laws.
Two thirds.

00:13:35.507 --> 00:13:36.956
So this is change happening.

00:13:36.980 --> 00:13:38.846
This is progress.

00:13:38.870 --> 00:13:41.969
But we're not there yet, by far.

00:13:41.993 --> 00:13:44.215
Because it really isn't about corruption

00:13:44.239 --> 00:13:46.330
somewhere over there, is it?

00:13:46.354 --> 00:13:48.535
In a globalized world, corruption

00:13:48.559 --> 00:13:50.798
is a truly globalized business,

00:13:50.822 --> 00:13:52.913
and one that needs global solutions,

00:13:52.937 --> 00:13:56.913
supported and pushed by us
all, as global citizens,

00:13:56.937 --> 00:13:58.075
right here.

00:13:58.099 --> 00:13:59.265
Thank you.

00:13:59.289 --> 00:14:06.105
(Applause)