Clinton pal Ng Lap Seng back in the news

The Wire - A former UN General Assembly president accused by US prosecutors of taking $1.3 million in bribes from Chinese businessmen is in plea talks to resolve his case, according to a court filing on May 18.

The talks involving John Ashe, a former UN ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda who served as General Assembly president from 2013 to 2014, were disclosed in a letter filed in federal court in Manhattan by his lawyer.

Ashe, 61, is one of seven individuals charged since October 2015 in connection with the bribery scheme, which has also ensnared a billionaire real estate developer in Macau, Ng Lap Seng.

Prosecutors said Ng paid Ashe more than $500,000 through intermediaries to seek UN support of a United Nations-sponsored conference center in Macau that his company would develop.

 

Nation –  [The documents] known as “the Panama Papers,” reveal how elite multinational companies, the super rich, and government figures have engaged in tax-dodging practices engineered by a single Panama City–based law firm, Mossack Fonseca.  

The Clinton Foundation inhales donations from people using tax havens (including Panama). Although Hillary denounced Mossack Fonseca’s dealings on cue after the Panama Papers story broke, a number of individuals and multinationals that have contributed to the foundation used MF to establish offshore accounts, according to McClatchy. These include Canadian mining billionaire Frank Giustra who features in the foundation’s $25 million top-tier donor bracket, and two firms tied to Ng Lap Seng, the Chinese billionaire implicated in a major donor scandal involving the Clintons and the Democratic National Committee.

Progressive Review, 1994 - Macao businessman Ng Lap Seng, closely linked to a couple of major Chinese-owned enterprises, is regularly bringing in large sums of money to the US, according to customs records. On June 20 he arrives with $175,000 and then two days later meets with Charlie Trie and Mark Middleton at the White House. That evening Ng sits at Clinton's table at a DNC fundraiser. Middleton, incidentally, has a 24-hour pass that allowed him to visit Trie's apartment at the Watergate at any time. The apartment is paid for by Ng.