by Thoughtfox staff

The Amsterdam-based Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has granted Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo a ‘Lifetime Non-Achievement Award’ for his decades-long regime of repression and plunder. Announcing this award in a press release dated January 11, 2025, OCCRP notes that this is the first time that it has given an award like this to anybody since the organization was founded 13 years ago.

The press release also notes that Obiang, who has been the president of Equatorial Guinea since 1982, 'has squandered’ his country’s ‘natural resources, living an obscenely lavish lifestyle while the rest of the population suffers in poverty.’ Quoting supporting statements made by Anas Aremeyaw Anas—a well-known Ghanian journalist who served as a judge on the awards committee—OCCRP stresses that younger generations of corrupt coup leaders of Africa tend to look up to Obiang, ‘harboring similar ambitions to become godfathers of corruption like him.’

Bashar al-Assad

The focus of OCCRP’s press release, however, is its flagship award of ‘Person of the Year in Organized Crime and Corruption’ for AD 2024—which has been given to Syria’s ousted president Bashar al-Assad. Deposed in December 2024 after more than two decades in power, Assad has left behind a grim legacy of corruption, brutality, and narcotics trafficking in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant.

The press release notes that Assad’s regime turned Syria into a narco-state, with huge revenues from the production of Captagon—a synthetic addictive—financing his regime’s operations. Captagon’s production and smuggling had also fuelled violence and instability in neighboring Jordan and Lebanon, according to a 2023 investigation by OCCRP, BBC News Arabic, Suwayda24.com, and Daraj.com, the press release points out.

‘The political, economic, and social damage caused by Assad, both in Syria and in the region, will take decades to overcome’, the press release quotes Alia Ibrahim, a contest judge and Daraj.com’s co-founder. ‘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’, the press release sums up the OCCRP’s rationale for exposing him with its award.

Ruto, Adani, and others: a focus on globally oriented corruption

Per the press release, OCCRP’s award nomination procedure has also highlighted widespread frustrations with other global leaders. In fact, Kenyan President William Ruto was the one who had received an unprecedented and the highest number of public votes for the award, fueled by anger over corruption, economic hardship, and violent crackdowns on protests in 2023. However, the 6 judges opted for Assad due to the international scale of his criminality.

Gautam Adani, an Indian billionaire closely tied to the Modi government, was also mentioned for his alleged involvement in corrupt deals, including a controversial Kenyan airport project that was eventually cancelled. Adani was the 5th finalist for OCCRP’s uncharitable award.

The other three finalists for AD 2024 included Former President of Indonesia Joko Widodo, President of Nigeria Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and Former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina.

In the press release, OCCRP publisher Drew Sullivan emphasized the broader implications of corruption in autocratic regimes, noting that ‘Corruption is a fundamental part of capturing states and making autocratic governments powerful.’

In AD 2023, Guatemala’s Attorney General María Consuelo Porras was given the ‘Person of the Year in Organized Crime and Corruption’ award; she continues to be her country’s attorney general even now.