OCCRP’s 2024 Lifetime NON-Achievement Award & RUNNER UP & WINNER OF PERSON OF THE YEAR IN ORGANIZED CRIME AND CORRUPTION

2024 FINALISTS FOR PERSON OF THE YEAR IN ORGANIZED CRIME AND CORRUPTION

OCCRP asked for 2024 nominations from readers, journalists, the Person of the Year judges, and others in the OCCRP global network.

OCCRP Publisher Drew Sullivan SAID

• “Corruption is a fundamental part of capturing states and making autocratic governments powerful.”
• “These corrupt governments violate human rights, manipulate elections, plunder natural resources, and ultimately create conflict from their inherent instability.
• Their only future is violent collapse or bloody revolution.”

PREVIOUS YEARS WINNERS

• 2023 María Consuelo Porras = https://www.occrp.org/en/person-of-the-year/maria-consuelo-porras
• 2022 Yevgeny Prigozhin = https://www.occrp.org/en/person-of-the-year/yevgeny-prigozhin
• 2021 Aleksandr Lukashenko = https://www.occrp.org/en/person-of-the-year/aleksandr-lukashenko
• 2020 Jair Bolsonaro = https://www.occrp.org/en/person-of-the-year/jair-bolsonaro
• 2019 Joseph Muscat = https://www.occrp.org/en/person-of-the-year/joseph-muscat
• 2018 Danske Bank = https://www.occrp.org/en/person-of-the-year/danske-bank
• 2017 Rodrigo Duterte = https://www.occrp.org/en/person-of-the-year/rodrigo-duterte
• 2016 Nicolás Maduro = https://www.occrp.org/en/person-of-the-year/nicolas-maduro
• 2015 Milo Djukanovic = https://www.occrp.org/en/person-of-the-year/milo-djukanovic
• 2014 Vladimir Putin = https://www.occrp.org/en/person-of-the-year/vladimir-putin
• 2013 Romanian Parliament = https://www.occrp.org/en/person-of-the-year/romanian-parliament
• 2012 Ilham Aliyev = https://www.occrp.org/en/person-of-the-year/ilham-aliyev

The finalists who received the most votes this year were:

1. Bashar Al-Assad, the ousted Syrian president turned Syria
2. President of Kenya William Ruto
3. Former President of Indonesia Joko Widodo
4. President of Nigeria Bola Ahmed Tinubu
5. Former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina
6. Indian businessman Gautam Adani

🏆 OCCRP’s 2024 RUNNER UP Person of the Year in Organized Crime and Corruption. 🏆

KENYAN PRESIDENT WILLIAM RUTO

• KENYAN PRESIDENT WILLIAM RUTO received the most public nominations in OCCRP history — over 40,000 — highlighting outrage over corruption, police brutality, and economic mismanagement under his government.

🏆 OCCRP’s 2024 Person of the Year in Organized Crime and Corruption. 🏆

BASHAR AL-ASSAD

1. While Ruto’s public nominations were unprecedented, the OCCRP’s judges ultimately selected Assad for the top dishonour due to the far-reaching consequences of his regime’s corruption and brutality.
2. The judges acknowledge the importance of public interest and outrage at corruption. However, since the award is given to the person who has done “the most to wreak havoc around the world through organised crime and corruption,” they ultimately chose BASHAR AL-ASSAD as the winner.
3. Creating chaos for Syrians, Syria’s neighbours, the broader region, and the many countries affected by his criminality pushed him into the top slot.
4. The ousted Syrian president turned Syria into a narco-state, financing his regime through Captagon trafficking while leaving behind a legacy of destruction.
5.  Alia Ibrahim, Daraj Media co-founder and one of this year’s judges, said:-
1. “In addition to being a dictator like his father, Assad added unimaginable dimensions of crime and corruption, ruining the lives of countless people even outside the border of his own country.”

This year’s recognition also included:

🏆 A LIFETIME NON-ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 🏆

TEODORO OBIANG,

• TEODORO OBIANG OF EQUATORIAL GUINEA, one of the longest-serving dictators in the world whose rule has been marked by the looting of his country’s oil wealth.
• Judge and investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas said:-
• “Through fear, repression, and corruption, Teodoro Obiang has created a dynasty of wealth and impunity.”

Learn more about this year’s Corrupt Person of the Year and those recognised this year:

• https://www.occrp.org/en/person-of-the-year/bashar-al-assad

or read more below

BASHAR AL-ASSAD

1. Ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad led his country’s production and distribution of the highly addictive street drug Captagon, earning billions of dollars to operate prisons and maintain his brutal authoritarian rule.
2. The cases are rare in which a repressive, autocratic government backs up organised crime and wholesale corruption. As in Venezuela, North Korea, and Russia, deposed Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s regime was such a case, characterised by centralised control, suppression of dissent, and a reliance on a robust security apparatus.
3. As prisons get emptied and mass graves are dug up, the scale of Assad’s brutality toward his people is, sadly, becoming more apparent.
4. Coming to power in 2000 after the death of his father, Assad’s early promises of political liberalisation quickly gave way to authoritarian practices.
5. Part of the Arab Spring, the 2011 Syrian uprising challenged his rule and escalated into a punishing civil war that lasted until Assad’s ouster this month. His forces were accused of widespread human rights abuses, including torture, murder, the use of chemical weapons, mass detentions, and the targeting of civilians.
6. Financed by Captagon production and other forms of organised crime, such as human and cigarette smuggling, antiquities theft, and the arms trade, Assad’s tenure has spread violence, drugs, and corruption throughout the region.
7. A 2023 OCCRP investigation with BBC News Arabic, Suwayda24.com, and Daraj.com into the Captagon trade showed how Syria’s descent into a narco-state pitted Assad’s drug traffickers against security forces in Jordan and Lebanon. https://www.occrp.org/en/investigation/a-drug-war-syrias-neighbors-fight-a-flood-of-captagon-across-their-borders
8. Assad fled Syria with an estimated tens of billions of dollars in looted wealth to a life of comfortable exile in Russia, leaving behind a legacy of destruction.
9. said Daraj.com co-founder Alia
• “In addition to being a dictator like his father before him, Assad added unimaginable dimensions of crime and corruption, ruining the lives of countless people even outside the border of his own country,” Ibrahim, who was a judge in the contest this year.
• “The political, economic, and social damage caused by Assad, both in Syria and the region, will take decades to overcome.”

TEODORO OBIANG NGUEMA MBASOGO

1. For the first time in the contest’s 13-year history, the judges have awarded a special “Lifetime Non-Achievement Award.”
2. The prize goes to Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, one of the longest-serving dictators in the world. After leading a coup in 1979 to seize power from his uncle, Obiang has mercilessly repressed any dissent with unlawful arrests, forced disappearances, and torture.
3. While Equatorial Guinea is a small country blessed with significant oil and gas deposits that have generated considerable revenue, Obiang, together with a ruling elite, has stolen much of the country’s wealth. Instead of developing the country into a model for Africa, he has squandered its natural resources, living an obscenely lavish lifestyle while the rest of the population suffers in poverty. The longer he stays in power, the more his influence grows across Africa.
4. Ghanaian investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas was a judge in the contest this year. Anas said.
• “Through fear, repression, and corruption, Teodoro Obiang has created a dynasty of wealth and impunity”
•  “His dictatorial tendencies are being rapidly replicated by leaders across the African continent, with coup leaders today looking up to him as a godfather, harbouring similar ambitions to become godfathers of corruption like him.”

KENYAN PRESIDENT WILLIAM RUTO RECEIVED THE MOST VOTES

1. More than 40,000 people wrote in to nominate Kenyan President William Ruto for "Person of the Year" in organised crime and corruption.
2. Fuelled by the passage of a contentious finance bill, youth unemployment, and rage at their corrupt government, young Kenyans held demonstrations for weeks this past June and July, demanding that Ruto step down.
3. Security forces responded with tear gas, water cannons, arrests, and bullets — many people were killed, injured, or went missing following the protests.
4. Ruto’s government has been accused of greed and corruption, which has resulted in failures in economic policy, health, and education, overall instability, and the abduction of political opponents.
5. The comments submitted with the nominations were full of frustration and despair.
• “He’s stealing everything, including public funds; people are suffering without a proper healthcare system, and people are becoming poorer day by day,” one commenter wrote.
• “He has failed Kenya in every sector,” wrote another.
6. Many Kenyans (and others) also nominated Gautam Adani, the Indian oligarch who has funded and benefited from the Modi government's patronage in India. Adani was behind an airport deal in Kenya that was widely seen as corrupt before it was cancelled.
7. This extraordinary outpouring from Kenyans who continue to press for a better government was remarkable.