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World|life|October 7, 2015 / 02:55 PM
Former UNGA president and five others charged in $1.3 million bribery scheme

AKIPRESS.COM - John Ashe U.S. authorities charged a former president of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), a billionaire Macau real estate developer and four others on Tuesday for engaging in a wide-ranging corruption scheme, FBI said.

John Ashe, the U.N. ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda who was UNGA president in 2013, was accused in a complaint filed in federal court in New York of taking more than $1.3 million in bribes from Chinese businessmen, including developer Ng Lap Seng.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was said to be "shocked and deeply troubled" by the allegations against Ashe.

The complaint said Ng, through intermediaries, paid Ashe more than $500,000. In exchange, Ashe told Ban that a multibillion-dollar U.N.-sponsored conference center in Macau was needed. That center has not been built.

The intermediaries included Ng's assistant, Jeff Yin, and Francis Lorenzo, who had been a deputy U.N. ambassador from the Dominican Republic.

Yin, 29, was arrested with Ng, 68, last month on separate charges.

Yin told FBI agents after the arrest that Ng viewed the conference center as his legacy and made payments to obtain action from the United Nations on it, the complaint said.

Ashe, 61, also received more than $800,000 of bribes from Chinese businessmen to support their interests in the U.N. and Antigua and kicked some of the money to Antigua's prime minister at the time, the complaint said.

The complaint said those bribes were arranged through Shiwei Yan, 57, the chief executive officer of a New York–based nonprofit, and Heidi Hong Piao, 52, its finance director.

The UNGA presidency is a ceremonial one-year post paid for by the diplomat's home country. The complaint charged Ashe only with tax offenses, possibly because he may have diplomatic immunity for any conduct taken in his official capacity.

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