While Washington has gotten better at shutting down terrorist financing and starving regimes like Sudan and Iran of investment, it has done little to stop sitting dictators and their families from using America to stash their assets. Until now, Washington has sent a message to friendly dictators that you can steal and terrorize your people as much as you like as long as you hold power. We’ll only seize your assets if you’re overthrown.
Going after Mr. Obiang is especially courageous because Equatorial Guinea, sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest oil producer, is an important energy ally. American oil companies have billions invested there, pump virtually all of its oil and ship a good part of it to the United States. Washington generally avoids the potential foreign policy fallout that comes from pressuring friendly states to clean up their acts on human rights and corruption. Yet now, a top Justice Department official has declared, “the United States will not be a hiding place for the ill-gotten riches of the world’s corrupt leaders.”
The Justice Department’s complaint is also a crucial test, because if the United States government can’t win a case involving the Obiangs, it might as well stop trying to hold corrupt dictators accountable. The message to tyrants and oligarchs will be, “Come here and spend without fear that we’ll confiscate any of your ill-gotten gains.”
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