GTA businessman snared in Cuba’s corruption crackdown gets 15 years
GTA businessman snared in Cuba’s corruption crackdown gets 15 years
09/27/2014 11:04 PM Michael Weissenstein, The Associated Press
A Canadian automobile executive has been sentenced to 15 years in Cuban prison on corruption-related charges that officials here call part of a broad campaign against graft, his company said Saturday.
GTA-based Tokmakjian Group said the charges against its president, Cy Tokmakjian, 74, were concocted as an excuse to seize the automotive firm’s $100 million in assets in Cuba. The company described the case Saturday as “absurd” and a “travesty of justice.”
The company’s Cuban offices were raided in 2011 as Cuba launched an anti-graft drive that has swept up foreign business executives from at least five nations as well as government officials and dozens of Cuban employees at key state-run companies.
Foreign business people have long considered payoffs ranging from a free meal to cash deposits in overseas accounts to be an unavoidable cost of doing business in Cuba. President Raul Castro has said that rooting out rampant corruption is one of the country’s most important challenges.
More:
http://www.citynews.ca/2014/09/27/gta-businessman-snared-in-cubas-corruption-crackdown-gets-15-years/
