Mining giant Glencore flew cash bribes to Africa via private jet, UK court hears

Lisa Osofsky (second right), the SFO director, with Sara Chouraqui, Victoria Jacobson, and Elizabeth Collery, officials who worked on the Glencore case. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Glencore flew cash bribes to officials in Africa via private jet amid “endemic” corruption within the mining company, a London court has heard, in sentencing of the first ever UK corporate conviction on charges of bribing another person.

Third-party agents used Glencore’s money to bribe officials in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea and South Sudan, causing harms worth $128m, a sentencing hearing at Southwark crown court heard.