Image: Johnnybam / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
A Brooklyn jury convicted Asante Kwaku Berko of FCPA and money laundering conspiracy; sentencing is due in November.
A federal jury in Brooklyn convicted Asante Kwaku Berko, a former executive director in Goldman Sachs’s investment banking division and a US and Ghanaian dual citizen, on 6 August 2026 of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, violating the FCPA and money laundering conspiracy, according to the US Department of Justice. Sentencing is scheduled for November; the maximum sentence is 30 years.
The scheme
Prosecutors said that from 2014 Berko worked to secure a deal between a Goldman client, a Turkish energy company, and Ghana to build and finance a power plant during the country’s energy crisis, and that he and co-conspirators paid or planned to pay more than US$1m in bribes to Ghanaian officials, including a planned US$1m payment to the then minister of power and US$5,000 each to five officials during a trip to Turkey. Parliament approved the power plant deal in July 2015. Goldman withdrew from the transaction over corruption concerns. Berko was extradited from the UK in July 2024. The SEC brought civil charges against him in 2021.
Why it matters
The conviction confirms the reach of US law over individuals involved in West African infrastructure deals through US banks or accounts, and the use of emails and payment trails in proof. For Ghanaian counterparties and advisers, it is a reminder that parliamentary approval of a contract does not cure corruption in its procurement, and that emergency power procurement has been a recurring source of later disputes. Ghanaian authorities have not announced prosecutions of the officials concerned.
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