The leaked records reveal that many of the power players who could help bring an end to the offshore system instead benefit from it – stashing assets in covert companies and trusts while their governments do little to slow a global stream of illicit money that enriches criminals and impoverishes nations.Īmong the hidden treasures revealed in the documents: The files also detail financial activities of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “unofficial minister of propaganda” and more than 130 billionaires from Russia, the United States, Turkey and other nations. The secret documents expose offshore dealings of the King of Jordan, the presidents of Ukraine, Kenya and Ecuador, the prime minister of the Czech Republic and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
While most states ranked high in one measure and low in another, New York ranked in the top 15 for most corrupt in every category.Millions of leaked documents and the biggest journalism partnership in history have uncovered financial secrets of 35 current and former world leaders, more than 330 politicians and public officials in 91 countries and territories, and a global lineup of fugitives, con artists and murderers. The less corrupt states may not need the stricter laws.īharara, though, did have a point. Some of the most corrupt states have recently passed laws because they were corrupt. The lack of connection between the laws and actual corruption shouldn’t be that surprising. Illinois ranked in the top six across all the other categories, except it had some of the best anti-corruption laws on the books. Somehow, New Jersey was rated as having the best anti-corruption laws, even though it ranked as the third and eighth most corrupt state, according to the reporter rankings and federal corruption convictions per capita, respectively. Georgia took home the honors as having the least stringent anti-corruption laws. The scores on these laws had little correlation with the other measures of corruption. What about good anti-corruption laws? The State Integrity Investigation had “experienced journalists grade each state government on its corruption risk using 330 specific measures” put into 14 categories, including campaign finance, ethics laws, lobbying regulations and management of the state pension fund. They didn’t get a single response from Louisiana. And as the authors note, they had only a small number of reporters in some of the less-populated states. Some reporters are better tied into the political scene than others. Of course, this method, too, has its weaknesses. The least corrupt state, according to local reporters, was Massachusetts, even though in terms of federal convictions per capita it ranked in the top 25. New Mexico, which was in the 30s in per capita federal convictions emerges as fifth. They asked them about illegal corruption (“the private gains in the form of cash or gifts by a government official, in exchange for providing specific benefits to private individuals or groups”) and legal corruption (“political gains in the form of campaign contributions or endorsements by a government official, in exchange for providing specific benefits to private individuals or groups, be it by explicit or implicit understanding).”Īggregating their results across the branches and for both legal and illegal corruption, Kentucky emerges as the most corrupt state. That’s why Dincer and Johnston surveyed 280 state political reporters to ask them how corrupt they thought the branches of their state governments were. And as Oguzhan Dincer and Michael Johnston of Harvard University’s Center for Ethics detail, prosecutors have a lot of leeway in what they investigate. We don’t know how many corrupt officials are never caught. Some acts are technically legal but clearly unethical. Plenty of corruption falls outside the purview of U.S. This way of measuring corruption also has problems. The least corrupt states are Washington and Oregon. 11 on the list, and California falls to 34th. Per capita, Louisiana is the most corrupt state, followed by Mississippi. Yet it’s clear from this list that the most corrupt states are also the states with the biggest populations. We can look at the absolute number of public officials convicted in federal court on corruption.
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