US arrests former officials for bribery on behalf of Chinese energy group

Two former government officials from Hong Kong and Senegal were arrested in New York last week, the US Justice Department said, for alleged bribing senior African government officials on behalf of a Chinese energy company, as well as money laundering. The Justice Department said in a statement Monday that former Senegalese Foreign Minister Cheikh Gadio was arrested on Friday, and former Hong Kong Secretary of Home Affairs Patrick Ho on Saturday. Both were found to have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and committed money laundering, it said. The statement did not name the Chinese energy company. It only said the company, which funded a non-governmental organization of which Ho was the head, is a “Shanghai-headquartered multibillion-dollar conglomerate that operates internationally in the energy and financial sectors,” Caixin reports.  Based on public records, Ho was the secretary general of CEFC China Energy Co.’s China Energy Fund back in 2011.