The U.S. is intensifying the hunt for bribes paid overseas andis warning corporations to cooperate—or else.

Using funds from the billions of dollars seized from criminals,the government is committing more agents, attorneys and accountantsto the mission. With 40 new lawyers and FBI agents dedicated toforeign-bribery probes, investigators have begun working out ofspecialized anti-bribery units across the country as they chasehard-to-get evidence about crooked deals in Asia, Africa and SouthAmerica.

“We're trying to leverage” companies into reporting suspectedbribes by their workers “because often only they have the abilityto get that information,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General LeslieCaldwell said in an interview. “We expect that with new agents andour prosecutors out there,” companies “will think significantlyabout self-reporting.”

The Justice Department's move to bolster its forces under theForeign Corrupt Practices Act echoes a different buildup ofwhite-collar law enforcement a decade ago, which kicked off thebiggest U.S. crackdown on insider trading. Back then, asprosecutors opened dozens of probes that rattled Wall Street, theFBI added agents and the Justice Department turned to wiretaps andinformants in its push to infiltrate crooked trading rings.

Now, the Justice Department is promising to deliver new briberycases, escalating its use of such tools while demanding thatcorporations come clean.

“I'm a big fan of all sorts of tactics, including wiretaps, tobuild a case,” George Khouzami, the assistant special agent incharge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's New York office,said in an interview. “We've had significant success in recentpublic corruption cases where it's easy to play the tape and provethe crime. Why wouldn't we take advantage of that now when doingFCPA cases?”

The government has won some heavy penalties from companies underthe FCPA, which makes it illegal for U.S. companies and thoseworking for them to pay bribes to win overseas business. Since2005, the U.S. has collected more than $4 billion in fines fromforeign companies and more than $1.8 billion from U.S. firms.

But the U.S. has had mixed success against individuals. Whiledozens of bribe payers have been convicted over the years, the U.S.in 2012 dismissed the biggest prosecution of individuals accused offoreign bribery after failing at a trial against 10 defendants. Itwas the first time the government used an undercover stingoperation to charge violations of the FCPA.

In 2014, the department reached accords with seven companies,including a $772 million case against Alstom SA.

The department last year resolved the fewest number of FCPAcases since 2006 — two corporate settlements and six individualprosecutions. The drop came as the department shifted its focus topursuing bigger prosecutions. One current probe focuses on Wal-MartStores Inc., which in 2011 disclosed possible violations inMexico to the Justice Department and Securities and ExchangeCommission. The company has said it's cooperating.

The U.S. prosecuted about 80 FCPA cases from 2005 to 2015,Khouzami said.

Ten Years

“That's over ten years, and you may wonder why so few?” he said.“A lot of these cases were not addressed because we didn't haveadequate resources to investigate them.”

The Justice Department's FCPA unit has grown to 29 lineattorneys from 19, with six supervisors, Andrew Weissmann, chief ofthe fraud section, said Tuesday during a speech at a GlobalInvestigations Review conference in Washington. Prosecutors inWashington are aided by 30 agents in New York, Los Angeles andelsewhere.

“It will be the largest it's ever been in the fraud section'shistory,” Weissmann said.

FBI agents working out of Los Angeles will focus on transactionsin Asia, investigators in Washington will scrutinize governmentcontracts, New York-based agents will examine Wall Street banks,and those in Texas will probe the oil industry, Caldwell said. TheU.S. is also stepping up its cooperation with other countries.

Companies that self-disclose are typically seeking lesserpenalties from the government.

The new self-disclosure initiative may make it less likely thatcompanies will voluntarily reveal wrongdoing to the JusticeDepartment, said Mike Koehler, a law professor at SouthernIllinois University who writes the FCPA Professor blog. Because thegovernment is demanding complete cooperation, companies may bereluctant to come forward, he said.

“We're trying to change the conversation in the boardroom,”Caldwell said. “If they don't self-report and we find out about itin a year, and they decided that they would only cooperate if thegovernment comes calling, we want them to understand they're notgoing to get credit from us.”

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