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US jails ex-Guinea minister over China bribes

A former Guinean cabinet minister, Mahmoud Thiam, 50, was sentenced to seven years in a US prison on Friday and ordered to pay back $8.5m for laundering bribes from a Chinese conglomerate in exchange for mining rights. Thiam was found to have concealed the bribes in a Hong Kong bank account before transferring the money to the United States, where he bought a lavish $3.75m estate in Dutchess County, New York and sent his children to private school. Acting Manhattan US attorney Joon Kim accused the defendant of “enriching himself at the expense of one of Africa’s poorest countries.” –News24/

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