The U.S. government has requested a civil forfeiture complaint to seize two Manhattan apartments in New York allegedly purchased with funds from corruption by a former Mongolian prime minister.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn claim that Sukhbaatar Batbold, a current member of the Mongolian parliament, and his family paid $14 million for two midtown Manhattan apartments in 2012 and 2015.
Investigations from prosecutors, however, have shown that the apartments were paid for with the proceeds from a $68 million mining contract given to Catrison Limited, a Hong Kong-registered company, in 2011 to purchase copper concentrates from the Erdenet copper mine in Mongolia.
They also disclosed that Catrison, which was a newly-formed company with no prior mining experience, was controlled by Mr Batbold through intermediaries, the Voice of America, reported citing a statement from the US Department of Justice on Tuesday.
According to the report, Mr Batbold is accused of using his position as prime minister to grant contracts to “entities owned or controlled by his associates or his son.”
The civil forfeiture complaint further revealed that Mr Batbold and his family had broken anti-corruption legislation in Mongolia.
“Today’s forfeiture action sends a message that criminal activity is never included in the homeowner’s agreement,” U.S. attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.
“As alleged, former Mongolian Prime Minister Batbold used high-end New York City real estate as a cover for his illicit corruption scheme,” Peace said.
Mr Batbold’s lawyers have responded to the complaint by stating that a previous civil case that took place in 2020 concluded that he didn’t own any property in New York.
In a statement by Mr Batbold’s lawyer Orin Snyder said that his client was looking forward to his day in court, where he would have an opportunity to defend himself against what he termed baseless accusations.
