Credible multiple sources in the United States have hinted the GNN that the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has again redoubled its effort to vigorously bring to book those perceived to be corrupt actors and their networks across several countries including Liberia.
According to sources closed to the GNN, following the imposition of sanctions on one of Liberia’s prominent lawyers who is also a Senator in the Liberian Senate, Harry Varney Gboto-Nambi Sherman, others have been nailed for their alleged involvement in what the sources noted of corruption and serious human rights abuse while performing their duties as government officials.
Our sources said like Harry Varney Gboto-Nambi Sherman who has been nailed for his alleged link to corruption when he reportedly offered bribes to multiple judges associated with his trial for a 2010 bribery scheme, and he had an undisclosed conflict of interest with the judge who ultimately returned a not guilty verdict in July 2019. He routinely paid judges to decide cases in his favor, and he has allegedly facilitated payments to Liberian politicians to support impeachment of a judge who has ruled against him.
In the 2010 scheme that led to this trial, Sherman was hired by a British mining company in an effort to obtain one of Liberia’s last remaining mining assets, the Wologizi iron ore concession. Sherman advised the company that, in order to obtain the contract, they first had to get Liberia’s procurement and concessions law changed by bribing senior officials.
In 2016, Sherman was indicted by the Liberian government, along with several other government officials, for their involvement in the USD 950,000 bribery scheme. In 2019, the presiding judge acquitted all individuals accused of being involved in the bribery scheme. Sherman’s acts of bribery demonstrate a larger pattern of behavior to exercise influence over the Liberian judiciary and the Ministry of Justice.
Sherman is designated for being a foreign person who is a current or former government official responsible for or complicit in, or directly or indirectly engaged in, corruption, including the misappropriation of state assets, the expropriation of private assets for personal gain, corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources, or bribery.
Multiple sources hinted the GNN have also disclosed that several government officials of the Liberian Government mainly from the Judiciary, the Executive, and the Legislature have been shortlisted for sanctions due to their alleged involvement in corruption and the abuse of human rights in Liberia which Global Magnitsky said is totally against the people whom they must to serve, and bring dignity to their livelihood.
According to our sources, the names of those to be sanctioned due to their huge involvement in corruption and the abuse of human rights in Liberia will not be released, but some of those to be sanctioned by the United States Treasury Department were recently denied from traveling out of Liberia.
However, it is not cleared as to whether the September 2021 publication featured on this platform that many officials of the Liberian Government will not be able to travel out of Liberia is connected to this latest information.
Investigation continues
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