10 Seriously Corrupt Politicians Throughout History

1 – Robert Mugabe

The name of this individual may not need an introduction. Mugabe has dominated Africa for decades and, for many, embodies the very worst behavior of leaders on the continent. Born in 1924, Mugabe began his working life as a teacher. He later became involved in Zimbabwean politics, as publicity secretary for the country’s National Democratic Party. He went on to co-found the Zimbabwe National Union (ZANU) which became the ZANU Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). He was driven by anger at British colonialism of Rhodesia and advocated a black-led state.

Mugabe was a prominent leader of the guerrilla campaign against the government led by Ian Smith which had, unilaterally, declared independence from the United Kingdom. After exile in Mozambique, Mugabe returned to Rhodesia and led his ZANU-PF party in elections to become prime minister of Rhodesia in 1980. ZANU-PF’s 63% of the national vote in the election was tarnished by claims of serious voter intimidation during the campaign.

From the very early days of Mugabe’s reign, a new leadership elite formed at the top of Zimbabwean society among which corruption was rife while many Zimbabwean citizens existed in poverty. In 1987, Mugabe became President. He now had a stranglehold over the whole of the government and he was determined to keep it that way. The 2000 election was marked by reports of violence, rapes, beatings and voter intimidation by ZANU-PF. European Union observers concluded that the elections were neither free nor fair. ZANU-PF won just a percentage less than the rival party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), meaning it did not have the majority needed to effect constitutional change.

Later in 2000, to maintain political control, Mugabe deliberately wrecked the Zimbabwean economy by seizing the land of white farmers. Though Zimbabwe’s High Court ruled that the land invasions were unlawful, they still continued and Mugabe vilified the country’s judges. Shortly afterwards, opposition parties in Zimbabwe led an attempt to impeach Mugabe, but the then Speaker of the House, a Mugabe loyalist, halted the attempt.

In the 2008 presidential elections, ZANU-PF won marginally less of the popular vote than the MDC. But Mugabe refused to leave, declaring that “only God” could make him go and unleashing a wave of violence to keep him in power. His rival Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC pulled out of the election but Mugabe had no choice but to share power with him. In 2013, Mugabe’s party won the election with 61% of the vote but it was not considered free or fair. Accusations of vote fixing were rife and ZANU-PF members exploited people’s weaknesses offering food and clothing to voters in exchange for support.

Mugabe’s reign ended in November 2017 when the Zimbabwean National Army forced him from office. In the midst of impeachment proceedings, Mugabe resigned with immediate effect, though not before he had secured an exit package consisting of exemption from prosecution, a cast-iron assurance that his business interests would not be touched and a payment of at least $10 million. He is currently living in luxury.

2 – Mohamed Suharto

Mohamed Suharto is one of the most corrupt heads of state ever to have walked the earth. This former president of Indonesia was so crooked, in 2004 he even topped an “all-time corruption league table” by Transparency International. He became president of Indonesia in March 1968 and over the next three decades, his “New Order” regime imposed a strong, centralized and military-dominated government. For most of his tenure, Indonesia experienced economic prosperity and industrialization, which improved living standards in Indonesia. Unfortunately, Suharto also used corruption to amass a staggering personal wealth from his office.

During his 31 years as effective ruler of Indonesia, Suharto acquired between $15 to $35 billion. A carefully organized system of handing control of state-run monopolies to friends and family members enabled Suharto to make tribute payments of millions which frequently masqueraded as charitable donations to foundations which Suharto oversaw. While these entities – known as “yayasans” – were ostensibly intended to assist in improving various public services, they served as nothing more than cash conduits for Suharto’s personal enrichment. He used his presidential power to make it a requirement that payments to these yayasans became a standard cost of operating in Indonesia. Banks and other financial institutions, for example, had to pay a portion of their annual profits to a yayasan while high net-worth Indonesians were also obliged to contribute “tithes” from their salaries.

Suharto’s venality didn’t stop there. To be able to take advantage of Indonesia’s vast natural resources, businesses were made to obtain the assistance of a Suharto associate to be able to overcome the significant red tape purposefully placed in their way. In exchange, equity in the enterprise had to be surrendered. For example, when the Indonesian capital Jakarta’s water system was privatized, twenty percent of the venture’s shares had to be paid to Suharto’s son Sigit. Suharto also used service firms to extract cash from larger companies. The Indonesian state oil company, Pertamina was made to import and export its oil through two Suharto family-owned companies, each levying a fee of 35 cents a barrel for the service. Suharto companies also benefited from very lucrative contracts with the oil giant. An audit of Pertamina in July 1999 revealed that $6.1 billion had been stolen in this way.

Suharto made only token gestures toward reducing corruption. In 1977, he claimed to back a program called “Operation Orderliness” which aimed to combat cronyism. In reality, it focused on only minor civil servants and so did very little to deal with the real and growing problem of corruption at the top of the Indonesian government. Suharto was also supposed to stand trial in 2000, accused of embezzling around $571 million from the above-mentioned yayasans. Conveniently, doctors ruled him too ill to face proceedings. He was swept from office when mass demonstrations against the Indonesian government broke into rioting in May 1998. He lost the military’s support and resigned from office on May 21st. After a period of ill health, Suharto died in January 2008.

3 – Jabez Balfour

Our next corrupt office-holder may not have dealt in billions of his country’s currency, but there is very little doubt his actions made many people’s lives a misery while he was alive. Jabez Balfour was an English businessman and politician. He was born in London in 1843 and was elected as a Member of Parliament for the constituency of Tamworth in the House of Commons in the United Kingdom in 1880. He subsequently became MP for Croydon in 1885 and then for Walworth in 1886. Balfour’s extensive business interests involved founding investment underwriting firm Trustees, Executors and Securities Insurance Corporation, Limited in 1887 with fellow financiers Leopold Salomons and Sir John Pender. He was also the chairman of the Northampton Street Tramways. In many ways, he was what many nowadays regard as the archetypal prosperous Victorian industrialist.

In 1892, Balfour was embroiled in a scandal that would come to define him. A number of companies Balfour had set up and controlled, including most prominently the Liberator Building Society, went bust because the Liberator had sent money to property companies to purchase properties owned by Balfour at a very high price. While Balfour had made huge sums of money, thousands of investors were left in ruins. When the scandal and Balfour’s part in it was revealed, Balfour fled the UK, but was arrested in Argentina in 1895 by Scotland Yard’s Inspector Frank Forest. Proceedings to extradite Balfour back to Britain to be tried became bogged down by legal toing-and-froing. To overcome this, Froest simply manhandled Balfour into a train and boat bound for the UK. Balfour was convicted in London’s Old Bailey court and sentenced to fourteen years in prison. He was released in 1906 and died aged 72 on February 23, 1916.

4 – Richard Nixon

Since the events which led to the end of his presidency in the 1960s, history has conferred on the 37th President of the United States a reputation for being, arguably, the most corrupt head of state the country has so far produced. Nixon was born in 1913 and, after a brief period as an attorney in California and serving in the US Naval Reserve during World War II, Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946 and the Senate in 1950. After a failed bid in the 1960 election, he was elected President in 1968.

Nixon is most infamous for the events known as the “Watergate” scandal. Most notoriously, these included the covert bugging of the Nixon Administration‘s political opponents. On June 17, 1972, five men were caught breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic Party at the Watergate complex in Washington D.C. Probing further, The Washington Post newspaper communicated with an informant called “Deep Throat” – later revealed to be an associate director of the FBI, Mark Felt – to link the burglars of the building to President Nixon. The President dismissed the revelation by describing the news articles covering the scandal as misleading and politically biased. But it subsequently emerged that the Committee to Re-Elect President Nixon and then the White House tried to sabotage the Democratic Party.

In July 1973, Alexander Butterfield, an aide at the White House, testified to Congress that President Nixon had a secret taping system that recorded his phone calls in the Oval Office. While the Watergate Special Counsel subpoenaed the tapes, Nixon delivered only transcripts of the conversations on the basis of “executive privilege”.

In November 1973, Nixon’s lawyers confirmed that a tape of conversations in the White House on June 20, 1972, contained a gap of 18 ½ minutes. Nixon’s personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, claimed responsibility for the gap, explaining that she had accidentally wiped the minutes of the recording when transcribing. The noticeable gap in the transcript cast damaging doubt on Nixon’s claim that he had been unaware of the cover-up. Nixon vowed to remain in office and rejected accusations against him. On television on November 17, 1973, Nixon said: “People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got.”

On May 9, 1974, the House of Representatives commenced impeachment proceedings against him, which ended in votes backing impeachment. The US Supreme Court then ordered that the full tapes must be released. When one of the new tapes confirmed that the President had been informed of the burglaries’ connection with the White House shortly after they took place and also confirmed that Nixon had approved plans to obstruct the investigation, on August 5, 1974, Nixon accepted that his “loss of memory” was to blame for his lying to the country. He accordingly resigned from the Presidency on August 9, 1974.

5 – Albert B Fall

Our next elected representative who should have known better is also from the United States. Albert B Fall was born in Kentucky in 1861. After working in a cotton factory as a child, he moved to Oklahoma, then to Texas and eventually settled in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where he practiced law and worked as a teacher simultaneously.

Having been admitted to the American Bar in 1891, Fall served in New Mexico’s House of Representatives. He was made a judge of the third judicial district in 1893 and then an associate justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court later that year. He became the territory’s attorney general in 1897. A member of the US Republican Party, Fall was elected as one of the first Senators for New Mexico to the US Senate in 1912. Over the next few years, he occupied a number of prominent positions on various Senate Committees, including chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Commerce and Labor. He was also notable for his support of the suffrage movement and isolationism at the time the United States entered the First World War.

In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed Fall as Secretary of the Interior. Shortly afterwards, the President ensured that Fall’s department should assume responsibility for the Naval Reserves at Elk Hills, California, Buena Vista, California and Teapot Dome, Wyoming. In April 1922, the Wall Street Journal reported that Secretary Fall had that two of his friends, oil barons Harry F Sinclar and Edward L Donheny should be granted leases to drill in parts of the Naval Reserves without having to go through open bidding.

Fall accepting bribes for the leases was the root of the Teapot Dome scandal. In the congressional hearings on the scandal which ensued in 1924, Fall explained the concept of “oilfield drainage” with a line subsequently adapted in the dialogue of the 2007 film There Will Be Blood: “Sir, if you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake and my straw reaches across the room, I’ll end up drinking your milkshake.”

The Congressional investigation into the scandal concluded that Fall was guilty of conspiracy and bribery. Edward L. Doheny had paid him $385,000 in return for the grant of the leases. Fall was jailed for a year. He was the first-ever former US cabinet officer sentenced to prison because of misconduct in office. While Doheny was acquitted on a charge of bribery, his corporation foreclosed on Fall’s home in New Mexico as a result of “unpaid loans” which were in fact the $100,000 bribe Doheny had paid. Fall died in 1944, in El Paso, Texas.

6 – William Boss Tweed

The next elected representative who went rogue was also from the United States. The scandal that consumed him involved sums of money which would have been eye-watering to most people in the nineteenth century.

He was born in New York City in 1823 and quickly became involved in the city’s politics from quite a young age. He was a city alderman by the time he turned 28 and he held other offices in an attempt to build his position in the city’s Democratic Party. In 1852, he was elected to Congress. Tweed’s influence in New York politics gradually increased and in 1856 he was elected to a new, city-wide board of supervisors, which he would later exploit for his corrupt activities. By 1860, he was in control of all the Democratic Party’s nominations to city positions in New York. Eventually, Boss Tweed’s power over the city extended so far that his candidates were elected to the position of mayor of New York City, governor of New York and speaker of the state assembly.

Over quite a short space of time, Boss Tweed built up a network of associates occupying pivotal city and county posits. It became known as the “Tweed Ring“. In 1860, he opened a law office (though he was not a lawyer) and received significant payments from corporations for legal services which were actually extortions hidden under the guise of the law. He amassed massive sums of money and bought up acres of property in Manhattan. He wore a diamond attached to his shirt, for which he was lampooned mercilessly by his critics.

In 1868, Tweed became the leader of Tammany Hall and was also elected to the New York State Senate. In 1870, he and his associates obtained control over the city’s treasury when they passed a city charter naming them as the board of audit. The Tweed ring was therefore now able to drain New York City of its money via fraudulent leases, fake vouchers extortionately increased bills and other schemes it governed. The losses the Tweed ring caused to New York City are estimated to run to between $30 and $200 million dollars in today’s money. The damage caused increased the public’s backing for efforts by The New York Times newspapers (among others) to reveal Tweed and have him punished for the activities over which he presided. In 1873, Tweed was accordingly tried and convicted for forgery and larceny. Though he was released shortly afterwards in 1875, New York State filed a civil action against him to try to recover the millions he had fraudulently acquired and the authorities arrested him again.

Events later took a dramatic turn when Tweed escaped from jail. He went first to Cuba and then to Spain in the hope of avoiding pursuit. After a period spent on the run, Tweed was captured in late 1876 and extradited to the USA. He was confined to a New York City jail, where he died from severe pneumonia.

7 – Kathleen Kane

Our next example is unusual in two respects: female and modern.

Until a short while ago, Kathleen Kane was one of the US Democratic Party’s bright hopes of success. Showing herself to be ambitious for the high office and tough in everything she did, Kane decided to run for the state of Pennsylvania’s attorney general in the 2012 election, though she had never held elected office before. Former US President Bill Clinton backed her, however, and her prospects seemed good. In the election, Kane defeated her Republican rival for the position of attorney general David Freed, Cumberland County’s district attorney. Kane, therefore, became the first female State Attorney General in Pennsylvania.

Kane started off well but in 2014 a grand jury probed the leaking of memos which were alleged to have come from Kane’s office. At the time of the leaks, Kane was being criticized heavily for failure to prosecute Democrats in a bribery sting investigation in Philadelphia and a pay-to-play scandal relating to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. On January 21, 2015, the grand jury recommended criminal charges relating to these leaks be made against Kane for “perjury, false swearing, official oppression and obstruction of law.” In August 2015, Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman with one count of perjury, another count of false swearing, three counts of obstructing the administration of law and four counts of official oppression in connection with the grand jury leaks. Kane denied the charges and pledged not to resign.

On August 24, Kane was ordered to stand trial accused of leaking secret grand jury information to the press, lied under oath about it and ordered her aides to snoop illegally through computer files to monitor the investigation into the leaks. It was alleged that the leak was intended to embarrass rival prosecutors. The prosecution in the case called two witnesses who were very close to Kane whose evidence paralleled a 42-page affidavit filed against Kane which set out the probable causes of her actions. As a result of the criminal charges against Kane, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court suspended Kane’s license to practice law. However, the court said it would not be removing Kane from office. Kane subsequently appointed the former Montgomery County District Attorney and County Commissioner Bruce L. Castor, Jr., a member of the Republican Party, as Solicitor General of Pennsylvania to assume her decision-making position.

On October 1, 2015, an additional perjury charge was filed against Kane. This related to the alleged violation of a secrecy oath that Kane signed in January 2013 which also related to grand jury leaks. Suffice to say, by this stage, Kane had found herself in quite a bit of legal and political difficulty! Kane’s criminal trial commenced on August 8, 2016. On August 15, she was convicted on every count against her. The following day, Kane announced she was resigning as attorney general. On October 24, 2016, the court sentenced Kane to a term of 10-23 months in prison. As of the start of 2018, Kane’s jail sentence has been stayed pending an appeal. Her case continues.

8 – Ferdinand Marcos

The underhand actions of Ferdinand Marcos, who ruled the Philippines from 1972 until 1986, are, some argue, still having an impact on people today, nearly four decades since the end of his time in office. Marcos was elected President of the Philippines in 1965. His first term was dominated by his decision to commit Philippine troops to the Vietnam War which was raging at the time. He also concentrated efforts on trying to improve construction projects in the Philippines and on boosting the country’s rice production.

Marcos was elected for a second term in 1969. His campaign was dogged by violence and fraud and was believed to have been funded by millions from the Philippines’ national treasury. The turmoil from the campaign was so bad it became known as the “First Quarter Storm” and leftist activists took to the streets to demonstrate against (among other things) Marcos’ dictatorial leadership style. In 1972, Marcos declared martial law in the Philippines. His wife, Imelda, a consort who had very expensive taste and amassed a thousand pairs of shoes along with extensive Manhattan real estate, became a state official who frequently appointed family members and friends to lucrative roles in government and industry.

Under Marcos, the government often seized private businesses which were handed over to the friends and relatives of members of the regime. This “crony capitalism” at the heart of the Philippines created economic instability throughout the country. Marcos may have had successes through big infrastructure projects and harvesting, he boosted the military with large numbers of recruits, restricted public discourse, took over the media and incarcerated opponents.

In August 1983, Bengino Aquino Jr, Marcos’ most potent rival, returned from exile to try to bring hope to the Philippines. He was assassinated as he stepped off his plane. In response, Marcos launched an inquiry which implicated the Philippine military in the assassination, though suspicions remained that Marcos or his wife were responsible. Marcos’s core supporters gradually began to favor an end to his power, especially in light of the declining Philippine economy. During 1985, Marcos had to contend with a Communist insurrection and a resolution signed by 56 members of the Philippine assembly which called for his impeachment for enriching his personal funds by underhand means.

Marcos called special elections to try and calm the growing opposition. He defeated the opposition candidate – Corazon Aquino, the widow of Benigno Aquino -and retained the presidency but he was accused of fraud from many quarters. There followed a fraught stand-off between Marcos’ supporters and Aquino’s. Thousands of citizens took to the streets to support a non-violent uprising against Marcos. With unrest increasing, Marcos and his family were air-lifted from the presidential palace in Manila to exile in Hawaii. Evidence then emerged that Marcos had stolen 10 billion from the Philippine economy, leading to a federal grand jury indicting Marcos and his wife. Marcos died in 1989 from a cardiac arrest before the trial concluded. He was therefore never properly held to account for his corruption.

9 – Nicolas Fouquet

Nicolas Fouquet was born in 1615. With the titles of Marquis de Belle-Île and Vicomte de Melun et Vaux, he was Superintendent of Finances in France and one of the top figures in the French aristocracy at the time of King Louis XIV.

Born and brought up in an influential and affluent French family in Paris and being schooled by Jesuits, Fouquet became an advocate at the Parlement de Paris when he was still in his teens. He had a number of jobs through the 1640s, first in the provinces and then with the army of Cardinal Mazarin. It was through this role that he was able to buy – for that was how you got ahead in the seventeenth century – the position of procureur général to the parlement of Paris.

Knowing which side his bread was buttered, while Mazarin, chief Minister to the king, was in exile, Fouquet remained loyal to him, safeguarding his property and updating him about any key developments at court. When Mazarin returned, Fouquet demanded the office of Superintendent of the Finances and was given it. He was now in charge of what money went where and of negotiations with key financiers who made loans to the king. A combination of Fouquet’s own personal wealth and his confidence in himself, together with his prominent position at the Parlement, meant the financial transactions to which he was a party were protected from external investigation. Quickly he almost had Mazarin in a supplicant position and while the numerous demands on the French public purse meant Fouquet often had to borrow money from his own credit, he was able to take advantage of this confusion between the public funds and his own for his own ends.

Fouquet presided over a period of serious disorder in the French public finances: fraud with impunity was rife and generous aid and favors were handed out to financiers of the government whenever they required it. Fouquet, therefore, became one of the wealthiest men in France. Mazarin was so involved in the corruption that he could not adequately punish Fouquet. King Louis grew more and more irritated with Fouquet’s extravagant expenditures. He had bought the port of Belle-Île-en-Mer in the hope of taking refuge there in case of disgrace. He spent huge sums in building a grand chateau at Vaux-le-Vicomte where he also gathered together an incredibly impressive collection of art, manuscripts and antiques.

It was only a matter of time before the King had had enough. He secretly decided to condemn Fouquet to disgrace on May 4, 1661. So rich and powerful was Fouquet at that stage of his reign that Louis feared acting against Fouquet. Fouquet was at the head of a very influential group of French farmers who were likely to cause the king real trouble if Fouquet were attacked. The king accordingly used crafty devices to force Fouquet to sell his position as procureur général, thereby losing its protective privileges and paying the price of it into France’s public purse. The king’s musketeers arrested Fouquet just after a meeting of the provincial estates of Brittany where all of the king’s ministers attended.

Fouquet’s trial was long and complicated, lasting for three years. Fearing that Fouquet may turn into a seriously dangerous enemy if acquitted, King Louis did his utmost to ensure that the trial went his way. Fouquet was sentenced to banishment, but Louis made sure his punishment was changed to life imprisonment. Fouquet died in 1680.

10 – Ho-Shen

Our final corrupt individual in a position of power from history shows that corruption at the highest levels of power has always extended the world over. Ho-Shen was a Chinese courtier who was born in 1750. He became an imperial bodyguard at the age of 25. Records show that his good looks, wit and friendly manner made quite an impression on the then-emperor of China, Qianlong. Within a year, Ho-Shen obtained one of the most significant positions in the empire, gaining control of the disbursement of money and recruitment of people in the Chinese empire.

During the uprising of the White Lotus Society in central and western China in 1796, Ho-Shen was tasked with beating the rebels. Along with a number of his friends, he ensured the campaign lasted for a long time and diverted large sums of money originally intended to help fund the war to themselves. The troops accordingly resorted to looting ordinary people the emperor’s authority was seriously weakened.

Qinalong died in 1799 and Ho-Shen was removed from office. The new emperor, Jiaqing, had Ho-Shne arrested and made him commit suicide. While potentially unreliable because of exaggeration by his enemies, the value of Ho-Shen’s wealth on death is estimated to have amounted to 60,000,000 ounces of silver, 75 pawnshops, 70,000 furs, and a gold service of 4,288 pieces.

Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:

“Robert Mugabe: Is Zimbabwe’s ex-president a hero or villain?”. BBC News website. November 2017.

“Boss Tweed Biography”. Biography.com.

“How women politicians are becoming just like the guys”. The Christian Science Monitor. August 2016.

Nicolas Fouquet. Wikipedia.