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Former Ericsson Employee Charged in $2.1M Bribery Scheme
A former employee of Swedish telecom giant Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson has been charged with participating in a $2.1 million bribery scheme in Djibouti, a small country in East Africa.
Afework ‘Affe’ Bereket, 53, a dual citizen of Ethiopia and Sweden, allegedly engaged in the scheme between 2010 and January 2014 while serving as the account manager for the Horn of Africa, a region that included Djibouti, on a long-term assignment for Ericsson in Africa.
According to the indictment, Bereket participated in a scheme to bribe two high-ranking officials in Djibouti’s executive branch and a high-level executive at Djibouti’s state-owned telecommunications company to obtain a contract with the state-owned telecommunications company valued at approximately €20.3 million.
To effectuate the bribery scheme, Bereket and others caused an Ericsson subsidiary to enter into a sham contract with a consulting company and approve fake invoices to conceal the bribe payments. Bereket and others also completed a draft due diligence report that failed to disclose the spousal relationship between the owner of the consulting company and one of the high-ranking government officials who was bribed.
Bereket is charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. If convicted of both counts, Bereket faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison.
The bribery scheme was exposed after Ericsson entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the government in 2019 and paid a total penalty of over $520 million. Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said, ‘Bereket allegedly used the U.S. financial system to pay bribes to high-level government officials in Djibouti to ensure that Ericsson won a multimillion-dollar government contract.’
U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss for the Southern District of New York added, ‘As alleged, Afework Bereket conspired in a corrupt scheme to pay millions of dollars in bribes to two Djibouti government officials and an official of a state-owned telecom company to win a contract for Ericsson valued at more than €20 million.’
Key Facts
- State: New York
- Category: Public Corruption|White Collar Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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