Corruption

Rev Douglas Haefner, pastor of St Matthias Parish in New Jersey for 27 years, was jailed for seven years for taking nearly US$517,000 in parish funds, uncovered only after an audit he had repeatedly delayed.

A state pension fund subsidiary spent at least $3 billion renovating a Trelawny resort, with no value-for-money evidence, missing environmental permits, and record-keeping too shoddy for auditors to fully investigate.

A prominent real estate attorney with 44 years in practice was struck off after allegedly using forged documents to sell properties she had no right to sell, with entertainer Mavado among those claiming to be defrauded.

The Vatican took day-to-day control of Kerala’s Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese from Cardinal George Alencherry after a disputed sale of three acres in Kochi, for which the church received Rs 9.13 crore against claims the land was worth Rs 80 crore.

The North-South Highway deal included 1,200 acres of land, some of it prime north-coast property, transferred without a formal market valuation. The public still doesnt have a clear answer on what it was actually worth.

The North-South Highway deal included 1,200 acres of land, some of it prime north-coast property, transferred without a formal market valuation. The public still doesnt have a clear answer on what it was actually worth.

A prominent deal-broker attorney was disbarred and ordered to repay $111 million over a stalled Cabinet-approved property sale, later facing separate fraud charges totalling over $140 million on the same underlying claims.

The Auditor General found the NHT realised no return on three projects costing over $2 billion. For an institution funded by mandatory payroll deductions, thats a hard number to leave unexplained.

Six City Harvest Church leaders, including senior pastor Kong Hee, were convicted in Singapore over $35.9 million in church funds, including building fund money used to buy bonds in companies promoting his wife’s music career.

The NHT bought St Mary land from a company controlled by a sitting minister in 2003. Twelve years on, it sits unused and squatted, one of several projects the Auditor General says delivered no return on $2 billion.

Pastor Omar Johnson was jailed for two years after a church founder gave him five cars and $60,000 for church use; he transferred one car worth $535,000 into his own name and did not buy the music system.

A lawyer already barred from practising kept accepting client deposits for land deals anyway. His client only discovered the ban after her $1 million was already gone.

The Vatican removed Limburg’s Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst after about $43 million in church funds went on his residence, including a $4 million private chapel, and an inquiry found he alone bore full responsibility.