The U.S. is intensifying the hunt for bribes paid overseas and is warning corporations to cooperate -- or else.

Using funds from the billions of dollars seized from criminals, the government is committing more agents, attorneys and accountants to the mission. With 40 new lawyers and FBI agents dedicated to foreign-bribery probes, investigators have begun working out of specialized anti-bribery units across the country as they chase hard-to-get evidence about crooked deals in Asia, Africa and South America.

“We’re trying to leverage” companies into reporting suspected bribes by their workers “because often only they have the ability to get that information,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Leslie Caldwell said in an interview. “We expect that with new agents and our prosecutors out there,” companies “will think significantly about self-reporting.”

The Justice Department’s move to bolster its forces under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act echoes a different buildup of white-collar law enforcement a decade ago, which kicked off the biggest U.S. crackdown on insider trading. Back then, as prosecutors opened dozens of probes that rattled Wall Street, the FBI added agents and the Justice Department turned to wiretaps and informants in its push to infiltrate crooked trading rings.

Now, the Justice Department is promising to deliver new bribery cases, escalating its use of such tools while demanding that corporations come clean.

“I’m a big fan of all sorts of tactics, including wiretaps, to build a case,” George Khouzami, the assistant special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York office, said in an interview. “We’ve had significant success in recent public corruption cases where it’s easy to play the tape and prove the crime. Why wouldn’t we take advantage of that now when doing FCPA cases?”


Heavy Penalties


The government has won some heavy penalties from companies under the FCPA, which makes it illegal for U.S. companies and those working for them to pay bribes to win overseas business. Since 2005, the U.S. has collected more than $4 billion in fines from foreign companies and more than $1.8 billion from U.S. firms.

But the U.S. has had mixed success against individuals. While dozens of bribe payers have been convicted over the years, the U.S. in 2012 dismissed the biggest prosecution of individuals accused of foreign bribery after failing at a trial against 10 defendants. It was the first time the government used an undercover sting operation to charge violations of the FCPA.

In 2014, the department reached accords with seven companies, including a $772 million case against Alstom SA.

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