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Conceivably, but I think we need the big picture to know why we are doing it. One reason might be to "Mars form" Mars to turn back the clock to the earlier period when it had giant floods for instance.See what happens if you get a new really huge flood on Mars like the ones we have evidence of. Plus somewhat thicker atmosphere. Do you get Martian life spreading over the planet when that happens?There's a possibility of finding present day microbial life, and maybe deep down life forms there - so would be fascinating to see what happens if Mars gets briefly far more habitable. Would they flourish and cover the surface? Would the microbes form microbial mats and stromatolites and larger structures? Even giant lichens or some such?Where briefly here, might mean for several thousand years - so a huge time on the human timescale, though a brief moment in the geological record - and something that happened frequently in the first few hundred million years of our solar system - but rarely since then.The good thing about steering comets into Mars to do that is - that it is just imitating something that happens - though increasingly rarely - from time to time anyway geologically - just makes it happen more often.Whether we should do that I don't know. But - is far better than bashing ahead and trying to turn it into a copy of Earth, which is I think impossible - and this "Mars forming" might be a good thing to do. But need great thought and care.Or - even more ambitious - try to create a global northern ocean, thicken the atmosphere and try to turn it back to the first few hundred million years and see what happens (taking care to keep Earth life away - and of course - you would first remove all our existing rovers and erase all biological trace of our presence there).You may know from my other answers, that I am not a fan of ideas of sending humans to the surface of Mars or terraforming Mars - because I think it is so tremendously interesting and valuable to us in its current pristine state.Especially - I think there is a good chance we will find present day Martian life with fundamentally different biochemistry and biology - if so - would, I think, be a tragedy to confuse that by introducing Earth microbes to the planet at this stage before we even know what is there and what we are doing to the planet.Many people think that the surface of Mars is not habitable to Earth microbes. But in fact there are many niches there that have been proposed, more than one a year since 2008, that would permit Earth microbes to survive in the top few mms or cms of the Martian surface.. There are known to be salty brines just cms within the surface over most of the surface of Mars. Some of these may be habitable to Earth microbes. They even exist in the equatorial regions where Curiosity found them indirectly through variations in humidity as it traveled over sand dunes - it is not able to dig down to examine them. Curiosity’s brines are thought to be too cold for Earth microbes at night and too salty in the daytime, but Martian life might be able to tolerate and replicate at much lower temperatures and if so there could be native life there. Earth microbes could also retain water from the night into the daytime and survive in such conditions in biofilms that equalize the conditions between day and night if there were enough microbes build up to form a biofilm (not impossible e.g. after a human landing).THE CURIOSITY BRINES BELOW THE SURFACE OF SAND-DUNESThis was a serendipitous discovery announced in April 2015. Liquid brines that form through deliquescing salts (perchlorates) - the salts take in water from the atmosphere (same principle as the salts you use to keep equipment dry).They noticed that when Curiosity drives over sand dunes, then the air above them is drier than it is normally. When it leaves the sandy areas the humidity increases.Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) on NASA's Curiosity Mars roverIt’s temperature and humidity sensors are located on these booms on the rover’s mastNASA Mars Rover's Weather Data Bolster Case for BrineThis shows that something in the sand dunes is taking up water vapour from the air, and rather a lot of it too. They calculated that the perchlorates in the sand must take up so much water at night that the liquid brines would be habitable, except that they are too cold for Earth life. This shows how it works:As the day progresses the brines warm up but any brines close to the surface (in the top five centimeters or so) would dry out, and become too salty for Earth life. That's for any water in the top five centimeters or so.They found conditions for liquid water in the top 5 cms at various times in the morning for most of the year from 2 am to after 8 am, and in the evening in winter from 6 pm to around midnight (just reading off from their figure 3b)However, when temperatures in the top 5 cms reach conditions habitable for Earth life, they find that the water activity has dropped to zero, making it impossible for Earth microbes to replicate (Earth life requires a water activity level of at least 0.6). More strictly speaking, microbes may be able to replicate at lower temperatures but if so, it’s exceedingly slow, centuries to thousands of years.Planetary protection at present at least is based on keeping Mars free of Earth life only for our own purposes and not for future generations thousands of years from now, so they count habitats as being okay for planetary protection if the conditions are so cold that life would take millennia to colonize it.They suggest that it could have permanently hydrated brines below about 15 centimeters below the surface, and at that depth, the liquid would never get warm enough for metabolic activity for Earth microbes, never mind replication.Top temperatures in summer at 15 cms depth would be around -40 °C (I'm reading this off their figure 2a, grey shows the temperature range 15 cm below the surface).The authors of the paper concluded that the conditions in the Curiosity region were probably beyond the habitability range for replication and metabolism of known terrestrial micro-organisms. However this is in the tropics where the air is (comparatively) warm and dry, and it leads to the possibility of habitable brines in conditions that are colder, with greater atmospheric water content.As perchlorates are widely distributed on the surfaceof Mars, this discovery implies that the rest of the planet should possess even more abundant brines owing to the expected greater atmospheric water content and lower temperaturesFor a summary see "Evidence of liquid water found on Mars (BBC)" and for the article in Nature "Transient liquid water and water activity at Gale crater on Mars" (abstract, the paper is behind a paywall, but you can read it via the link in the BBC article through Springer Nature Sharedit,. or researchgate)."Gale Crater is one of the least likely places on Mars to have conditions for brines to form, compared to sites at higher latitudes or with more shading. So if brines can exist there, that strengthens the case they could form and persist even longer at many other locations, perhaps enough to explain RSL activity,"Principal Investigator Alfred McEwenNASA Mars Rover's Weather Data Bolster Case for BrineDO THE LOW NIGHT TIME TEMPERATURES REALLY MAKE THE CURIOSITY BRINES STERILE? - EFFECTS OF BIOFILMSDoes this really mean that the brines are sterile though - for either Mars or Earth life?Nilton Renno, who is an expert on Mars surface conditions suggests that Earth microbes may still be able to exploit this liquid brine layer through biofilms::"Life as we know it needs liquid water to survive. While the new study interprets Curiosity's results to show that microorganisms from Earth would not be able to survive and replicate in the subsurface of Mars, Rennó sees the findings as inconclusive. He points to biofilms—colonies of tiny organisms that can make their own microenvironment."Mars liquid water: Curiosity confirms favorable conditions.The 2015 review makes a similar point about the ability of multi-species microbial communities to alter dispersed small-scale habitats.Cells in biofilms are embedded in a matrix of externally produced substances (such as polysaccharides, proteins, lipids and DNA) and adjust environmental parameters to make them more habitable[45]. There are many examples of small-scale and even microscale communities on Earth including biofilms only a few cells thick. Microbes can propagate in these biofilms despite adverse and extreme surrounding conditions.NOTE ON FOOTNOTES: the footnotes here link to my Astrobiology Encyclopedia. This has corrected and extended versions of Wikipedia articles on the same topic, which have many mistakes and omissions (for instance, Wikipedia doesn’t mention the 2015 review).I don’t know if Nilton Renno meant a martian biofilm or one for Earth life. However both could work.Martian life would surely be adjusted to live at the lowest temperatures on Mars. It could do that using the chaotropic agents such as the perchlorates which are naturally present on Mars - these are chemicals that help processes to continue at lower temperatures than they usually do. Earth life may be able to use these too. 2014 report mentions these:3.1.3. Chaotropic substances. Numerous types of com-pounds increase the flexibility of molecules, destabilizing and/or fluidizing themMars has abundant chaotropic agentsChaotropes such as MgCl2, CaCl2, FeCl3, FeCl2, FeCl, LiCl, perchlorate, and perchlorate salts are, collectively, abundant in the regolith of Mars.These would permit faster metabolic processes at lower temperatures.The 2014 report has a findingFinding 3-3: Chaotropic compounds can lower the temperature limit for cell division below that observed in their absence. There exists the possibility that chaotropic substances could decrease the lower temperature limit for cell division of some microbes to below-18°C (255 K), but such a result has not been published.I haven’t found much research on the topic since then. Here are a couple of relevant papers but these are preliminary results:Bacterial presence in chaotropic perchlorates solutions at subzero temperatures: Implications to Mars (2019)Enhanced Microbial Survivability in Subzero Brines (2018)If you know of more on this topic do say.If it is possible for life to evolve to live in these habitats, then conditions on Mars would seem to be optimal to drive such evolutionChaotropic agents abundant in the Martian saltsSalty brines rich in these chaotropic agents with extreme low temperatures also likely abundant, in the top 15 cms throughout the equatorial regions.Surely there is a possibility here that martian biofilms have evolved to take advantage of these brines.If they have done so they would likely trap the water at night at those low temperatures below - 40 C and then retain it in the films through to daytime as the brines warm up to temperatures conducive to Earth life.So, the Curiosity brines could well be habitable to martian life. They may be habitable to Earth life too - though at those low temperatures it would likely reproduce only slowly. But if the biofilm retains liquid water through to daytime there isn’t really any limit on how warm it could get and still retain liquid within the biofilm that perhaps Earth life could colonize.There are many other potential microhabitats on Mars, even in equatorial regions. For a couple of examples see Microhabitats - such as micropores in salt pillars and ground hugging water vapour as morning frosts evaporate in my preprint.Also there may be underground caves that communicate with the surface. These would be of many different types on Mars, as varied as on Earth and some formed by processes unique to Mars involving dry ice, or rare on Earth involving sulfuric acid. Most of them won’t be easy to spot from orbit, just as caves on Earth are hard to spot from orbit, with entrances that are often hard to see even when you approach them on the ground. Penelope Boston lists some of the types of cave possible on Mars (Boston, 2010)Solutional caves (e.g. on Earth, caves in limestone and other materials that can be dissolved, either through acid, or water). The abundance of sulfur on Mars may make sulfuric acid caves more common than they are on Mars.Melt caves (e.g. lava tubes and glacier caves)Fracture caves (e.g. due to faulting)Erosional caves (e.g. wind scoured caves, and coastal caves eroded by the seas on ancient Mars)Suffosional caves - a rare type of cave on the Earth, where fine particles are moved by water, leaving the larger particles behind - so the rock does not dissolve, just the fine particles are removed.Sublimational caves caused by dry ice and ordinary ice subliming directly into the atmosphere (a process that doesn’t occur on Earth).See also these sections of my preprint:Potential deep subsurface habitats communicating with the surface including ice fumaroles and hydrothermal systems on MarsLichens, cyanobacteria and black yeasts surviving in modern Mars surface conditions (similar to Gale crater) and other examples of Earth life that could potentially survive on MarsSome think that it is possible that Mars has fresh liquid water in polar regions, a few tens of centimeters below the surface, protected from the surface vacuum by clear ice and melted by the solid state greenhouse effect. This should happen according to the models if Mars has ice similar in properties to the clear blue ice in Antarctica (where a similar process occurs).Potential for fresh liquid water in polar regions through solid state greenhouse effect - of special planetary protection relevancePerhaps there could even be liquid water in equatorial regions too when the early morning frost (discovered by Viking) melts. This is preliminary unpublished research at present.Andrew Schuerger’s lab at the University of Florida recently made a startling, albeit preliminary, discovery. He tested the effect of frost (first discovered on Mars by the Viking mission) on rocks under Martian conditions, and found that liquid water flowed on the rocks for about 15 minutes, before all the water turned into the gas phase.Life could exist on Mars today, very close to the surface - AirSpace magazineThere have been at least as many new proposed near surface habitats for Mars since the striking Phoenix leg droplet observations in 2008 as there have been years.Then let’s look briefly at the RSLs, top candidate for many astrobiologists.WHAT ARE THESE RECURRING SLOPE LINEAE (RSLS)?Skip to: Dust cascades explanationMany dark streaks form seasonally on Mars. Most of these are thought to be due to dry ice and wind effects. This image shows an example, probably the result of avalanche slides and not thought to have anything to do with water:Slope Streaks in Acheron Fossae on Mars - these streaks are thought to be possibly due to avalanches of dark sand flowing down the slopeNotice that these avalanche streaks are dark, and broad. They take decades to fade away.However a few of the streaks form in conditions that rule out all the usual mechanisms. These are the Warm Seasonal Flows, also known as Recurrent Slope Lineae.[100]They form on sun facing slopes in the summer when the local temperatures rise above 0C so far too warm for dry ice.They are not correlated at all with the winds and dust storms.They are also remarkably narrow and consistent in width through the length of the streak, when compared to a typical avalanche scar.They develop seasonally over many weeks, gradually extending down the slopes through summer - and then fade away in autumnWarm Season Flows on Slope in Horowitz Crater (animated)The leading hypotheses for these remains that they are correlated in some way with the seasonal presence of liquid water - probably salty brines.DUST CASCADES EXPLANATION STILL MOST LIKELY IS ACCOMPANIED BY SOME LIQUID WATERSkip to: Why life on Mars need not be related to Earth lifeA 2017 paper did show that the some aspects of these features are more consistent with dust cascades. That got widely reported (if you follow the news on Mars astrobiology), but what hasn’t been reported so much are the many difficulties with this explanation, which suggest it is only part of the picture. I found those through literature searches rather than news stories.These papers suggest they are not yet fully understood and may still contain substantial amounts of brines. I wrote a summary of this research for a draft astrobiology article I’m working on myself (work in progress) (cites here take you to my version of the article in google docs)The Recurring Slope Lineae (RSL’s) remain a leading candidate for brines that could be habitable, although there is considerable debate in the literature about the amount of brines present and whether they may be habitable. In planetary protection discussions since they may be the result of aqueous processes they are treated as “an Uncertain Region that is to be treated as a Special Region until proven” (Rettberg et al, 2016).A study of RSLs in Eos Chasma shows that the features are consistent with dust cascades, since they terminate at slopes matching the stopping angle for granular flows of cohesionless dust, and they also ruled out formation of substantial quantities of crust‐forming evaporitic salt deposits, though the hydrated salts and seasonal nature continue to suggest some role for water in their formation (Dundas et al, 2017).Difficulties with the dust explanation include the rapid fading away of the streaks at the end of the season, instead of the more usual decades, and a lack of an explanation of how the dust is resupplied year after year. Resupply also remains a major question for the models involving substantial amounts of liquid brines (Stillman quoted in David, 2017). A study of RSLs in the Valles Marineres finds that they seem to traverse bedrock rather than the regolith of other RSLs, and that if water is involved in their formation, then substantial amounts must be needed to sustain lengthening throughout the season (Stillman et al, 2017).I will be citing from my preprint here, registered with the Open Science Foundation, but will just be using it here for its literature summaries:Potential Severe Effects of a Biosphere Collision and Planetary Protection ImplicationsWHY LIFE ON MARS NEED NOT BE RELATED TO EARTH LIFEThe Chicxulub impactor did send material from a shallow tropical ocean to Mars, 66 million years ago, but it would be hard for a microbe to withstand the shock of impact, fireball of ejection from our atmosphere, ionizing radiation, cold and vacuum of space, and then to find a home on present day dry and dusty Mars congenial to it.If there is Earth life there, it’s most likely transferred billions of years ago when Mars had seas and big asteroids tens to hundreds of kilometers in diameter hit Earth able to punch a hole in our atmosphere and send rocks all the way to Mars with relatively little by way of shock or atmospheric heating.In the other direction, if it is native Mars life we don’t know its capabilities but it could easily be damaged beyond recovery by the instant shock of ejection from the Mars surface - and all of the meteorites we have at present come from at least a couple of meters below the surface and ejected from the southern uplands where the air is thinner so that smaller impacts can send material all the way to Earth. The most likely habitats for martian life are also fragile - dust, ice, salts, and it would not be easy for life in those to get to Earth.Again the easiest time for martian life to get to Earth is in the early solar system when Mars had seas, and later, lakes, and then it depends on its capabilities back then, whether it could do this.WHAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH BRINGING EARTH LIFE TO MARS?It’s easy to find life if we bring it there ourselves.Cassie Conley, former planetary protection officer for Mars puts it like this:33 seconds into this video “So we have to do all of our search for life activities, we have to look for the Mars organisms, without the background, without the noise of having released Earth organisms into the Mars environment.”Full quote:The idea of bringing microbes to Mars, in order to sort of test whether Mars could be a habitat, whether we could terraform Mars, whether it could be a habitat for Earth organisms -- that's something we might do eventually. If the international community decides it's the right thing to do, we can certainly do it. It's just that as we go about the process of exploring Mars, we don't want to screw up the things we want to do first by doing things that then we can't take back afterwards.We can't do a do-over on releasing organisms in the Mars environment. Once they're there they will be there. So we have to do all of our search for life activities, we have to look for the Mars organisms without the background, without the noise of having released Earth organisms into the Mars environment. This is why we are very careful when we clean robotic spacecraft, because we really want to understand what's there at Mars and not see the stuff we brought with us by accident.See also myRead online for free here: OK to Touch? Mars? Europa? Enceladus? Or a Tale of Missteps?Or buy here Touch Mars? Europa? Enceladus? Or a Tale of Missteps - Amazon.comNASA's Plan To Reduce Planetary Protection For Mars Risks Accidentally Extinguishing Second Genesis Of Life Before We Find ItProtecting Earth's Environment For A Mars Sample Return - Has NASA Started The Legal Process Yet?Too Late For NASA / ESA To Legally Return Mars Unsterilized Sample To Earth By 2032 - Protecting Earth's Environment A Priority

The 10 Most Corrupt World Leaders of Recent HistoryMost corrupt world leaders of recent historyIn reverse order, the tend most corrupt world leaders of recent history (measured in absolute terms) are:10. Arnoldo Aleman, President of Nicaragua (1997 – 2002)Amount Embezzled: $100 million | Years in Office: 5Soon after leaving office in 2002, the 81st President of Nicaragua, Arnoldo “El Gordo” Aleman, was arrested on corruption charges involving $100 million of state owned funds. He was convicted of money laundering, fraud, embezzlement and electoral crimes the following year, and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. The corruption uncovered within his administration was so rife that it led to the arrest of a further 14 people, including a number of close family members.Renowned for his use of a bottomless government credit card for personal expenditure, the amounts charged included $25,955 for a honeymoon in Italy, $68,506 for hotel expenses and handicrafts while on vacation in India (with his wife), and $13,755 for a night at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Bali.According to the World Bank and UNODCs Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (StAR), a 2008 publication by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, stated that a Nicaraguan investigation found that (between 1999 and 2002), Aleman and his cronies allegedly embezzled an estimated $100 million of government funds. The money was laundered through shell companies and fraudulent investment accounts in Panama and the United States, then used to purchase high-value assets including real estate and certificates of deposit. The accounts were also used to dispense embezzled funds to Aleman’s family members.In January 2009, the Nicaraguan Supreme Court controversially overturned Aleman’s corruption conviction and set him free. While never made public, it is thought that his release was part of a secret power-sharing arrangement made with Nicaragua’s current president Daniel Ortega.Return of assets: While there are on-going asset recovery cases in the Philippine’s, Singapore and the United States, the only completed case has been the forfeiture and repatriation of approximately $2.7 million of Aleman’s assets to the Nicaraguan government (by the United States) in 2004.9. Pavlo Lazarenko, Prime Minister of Ukraine (1996 – 1997)Amount Embezzled: $114 million to $200 million | Years in Office: 1An official count by the United Nation’s found that Pavlo Ivanovych Lazarenko, the 5th Prime Minister of the Ukraine, had allegedly siphoned off $200 million from state coffers (half a million dollars for each day as Prime Minister). The funds were funnelled through various bank accounts in Poland, Switzerland and Antigua, then laundered through a shell company in the United States, and used to purchase various properties.In December 2008, Lazarenko was detained by Swiss authorities on money-laundering charges as he crossed the border from France, but was released a few weeks later after posting a $3 million surety. A few months later the Ukraine stripped him of his immunity, and he fled to the United States.Detained on suspicion of improperly entering the country, he was subsequently indicted on 53 counts of conspiracy, money laundering, wire fraud, and interstate transportation of stolen property. In November 2009, he was sentenced by a California court to 97 months’ imprisonment, and ordered to pay over $9 million in fines and forfeit $22.8 million in various other assets. Lazarenko was released from a United States federal prison in November 2012.Return of assets: While Swiss authorities returned an unspecified amount to the Ukraine in 2001, there are still ongoing asset recovery cases in Liechtenstein (amount unspecified), Antigua and Barbuda ($87.1 million), the United States ($271 million), Guernsey ($150 million), Lithuania ($29 million) and Switzerland ($5.4 million).8. Alberto Fujimori, President of Peru (1990 – 2000)Amount Embezzled: $600 million | Years in Office: 10The son of a Japanese immigrant, Alberto Fujimori was Peru’s 45th President. An authoritarian ‘strongman’, he was credited with crushing a number of nationwide terrorist insurgencies, while at the same time rescuing the country from economic collapse. Notwithstanding these achievements, according to the historian Alfonso Quiroz, between $1.5 billion and $4 billion was lost to corruption, making the Fujimori’s regime the most corrupt in Peruvian history. During his decade in power, Fujimori is alleged to have illegally accumulated over $600 million in public funds.In April 2001, four months into his third term, Fujimori fled to Japan after a $1 billion corruption scandal broke involving the country’s national intelligence chief (who was caught on video bribing an opposition senator to join Fujimori). On arrival, Fujimori attempted to resign his presidency via fax, a move rejected by the country’s Congress, whose preference was to remove him by impeachment.Four-and-a-half years after going into exile, Fujimori announced his intent to launch a new bid for the presidency. In November 2005, he flew to Chile (from Japan) was arrested, and extradited back to Peru to face trial. After admitting to diverting $15 million of public funds to his intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, he was found guilty of embezzlement, and in July 2009, sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. Two months later he pled guilty to another bribery charge, and was given an additional six-year term. In 2015, Fujimori pled guilty to further bribery and graft charges (his fifth such conviction) and issued with an additional eight-year sentence.Fujimori’s trials are historic in that they mark the first (and only) time that a democratically elected head of state has been extradited to his own country, put on trial, and found guilty.Ironically, despite still being in jail, his daughter (Keiko Fujimori) was narrowly defeated in Peru’s recent Presidential elections, losing by just 43,597 votes!Return of assets: While there have been no asset recovery cases specifically involving Fujimori, a combined $172.5 million worth of funds – related to Vladmiro Montesinos (see above) – has been returned by: Switzerland ($93 million), the Cayman Islands ($44 million) and the United States ($35.5 million). Cases are still pending in Luxembourg, Panama, Mexico and the United States.7. Jean-Claude Duvalier, President of Haiti (1971 – 1986)Amount Embezzled: $300 million to $800 million | Years in Office: 15Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier inherited Haiti’s presidency (aged 19) on the death of his father François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, in April 1971. While implementing a number of reforms demanded by Haiti’s key ally, the United States, he maintained his father’s terror apparatus – including the infamous Tontons Macoutes (or ‘bogeyman’) – and added a raft of new techniques for skimming hundreds of millions of dollars from the country’s already poor coffers.The year Baby Doc took over, The US Commerce Department reported that 64% of the government’s revenue had been misappropriated, with millions diverted for “extra-budgetary” expenses, including deposits made into Baby Doc’s Swiss bank accounts. During his 15-year reign, Duvalier and his cronies allegedly amassed between $300 million and $800 million. In 1980, the IMF provided Haiti with $22 million in aid. Twenty million of this was allegedly siphoned off, with $16 million going to the Duvalier family and the balance to the Tonton Macoutes. Two years later, when Mexico supplied the country with $11 million of oil, the regime’s middlemen attempted to bypass international sanctions and sell it to Apartheid South Africa. In another moneymaking scheme, blood was bought from Haitian donors for $5 a pint and sold to Americans for $35 a pint. Duvalier also made millions from involvement in the narcotics trade, as well as in selling body parts. The result? A flourishing cadaver market in which at one point, a ‘supply shortage’ lead to the regime raiding funeral parlours for bodies.In 1985, after a referendum supported by 99.9% of the population, Duvalier was made President for life. Despite this, he was ousted by a popular uprising the following year and fled to France, where he lived in self-imposed exile for the next 25 years. He unexpectedly returned to Haiti in 2011, and was promptly arrested and charged with corruption and embezzlement. Pleading not guilty, the case was never heard, as Duvalier died of a heart attack (at his villa in an affluent suburb in the hills overlooking Port-au-Prince) in October 2014, aged 63.Return of assets: Apart from a case being appealed in Switzerland (of $6.5 million), the only other asset recovery related case recorded, is the long running proceedings involving Duvalier assets held in the name of the Foundation Brouilly. Based in Liechtenstein, the Brouilly Foundation is owned by a Panama based company, which in turn is owned by members of the Duvalier family.6. Slobodan Milosevic, President of Serbia/Yugoslavia (1989 – 2000)Amount Embezzled: $1 billion | Years in Office: 11Slobodan Milosevic spent two-terms as Serbia’s President (between 1990 to 1997) before becoming President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He is however, best known for his role in the Yugoslav wars, where he presided over the mayhem and mass murder that took place in Kosovo, Croatia and Bosnia in the nineteen-nineties. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) subsequently indicted him for war crimes and crimes against humanity; the first international war crimes tribunal held since the 1945 International Military Tribunals (held in Nuremberg and Tokyo).Following the disputed 2000 presidential elections, Milosevic resigned his presidency. He was subsequently arrested by authorities and charged with corruption, the abuse of power and embezzlement. When the investigation faltered over a lack of evidence, he was extradited to The Hague to face the ICTY charges. Defending himself, Milosevic refused to recognise the court’s legitimacy, as it had not been mandated by the UN General Assembly.According to the Washington Post, initial evidence uncovered by a joint investigation by Yugoslavia, the U.S. Treasury Department and the UN’s chief war crimes prosecutor, suggested that Milosevic, his family and a network of up to 200 loyal “businessmen-politicians”, had embezzled several billion dollars of public funds for personal use. While Yugoslavia’s central bank speculated that as much as $4 billion had been taken, the amount includes funds thought to have been used to keep Serbia functioning through a decade of UN economic sanctions. Notwithstanding this, insiders (including Milosevic’s close relatives) are believed to have laundered hundreds of millions of dollars through dozens of Cypriot front companies, with the trail pointing to Switzerland, Greece, France, Germany, Italy, Lebanon, Israel, Russia, China, Britain, Liechtenstein and South Africa.In perhaps the biggest single case investigated, Yugoslav officials attempted to track the proceeds from the sale of the state-owned cell phone company PTT Serbia to a consortium of Italian and Greek phone companies. Sold for around $1 billion, $200 million was never deposited into state accounts, and an additional $350 million allegedly went to companies controlled by Milosevic’s friends.Milosevic died of a heart attack in March 2006, before the trial could be concluded.Return of assets: Despite the amount allegedly stolen, there are no asset recovery cases on record.5. Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali, President of Tunisia (1987 to 2011)Amount Embezzled: $1.0 billion to $2.6 billion | Years in Office: 23The second President of Tunisia, Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali came to power in November 1987, after ousting President Habib Bourguiba in a bloodless coup. Once there, he remained in power for the next 23 years, each time being ‘re-elected’ by margins exceeding 90%.Under Ben Ali’s administration, Tunisia’s GDP grew by an average of nearly 5% (year-on-year) for 20 years, with Per capita GDP tripling from $1,201 in 1986 to $3,786 in 2008. So stunning was its growth, that in 2009, a Boston Consulting Group report listed the country as one of Africa’s “Lions”.While Ben Ali’s reforms halved the country’s poverty rate (from 7.4% in 1990 to an estimated 3.8% in 2005) high unemployment – particularly among the youth – a disenfranchised rural and urban poor, and continued repression, led to increasing unrest. The situation came to a head on 18 December 2010, when Mohamed Bouazizi (a 26-year-old fruit-seller) set himself alight after being humiliated by local policemen. Sparking off what soon became the Arab Spring, a wave of demonstrations and protests exploded across the country, and within a month Ben Ali and his wife fled the country. Denied refuge in France, Ben Ali was offered asylum in Saudi Arabia, and currently lives in Jeddah (the same city where Uganda’s infamous Idi Amin, lived in exile until his death in 2003).According to a 2015 World Bank research report, Ben Ali’s family and members of his inner circle are alleged to have defrauded the state of between $1 billion and U$2.6 billion over a seven-year period. At one stage it is thought that privileged insiders were capturing 21% of all Tunisia’s private sector profits, mostly through the illegal appropriation of national assets and skimming wealth from most sectors of the country’s economy.Following Ben Ali’s departure, an investigation into his wealth resulted in the new government confiscating the assets of 114 members of the Ben Ali Clan (including Ben Ali himself). Items seized included 550 properties, 48 boats, 40 share portfolios, 367 bank accounts and over 400 enterprises. The total combined value of these assets was approximately $13 billion, more than one-quarter of Tunisia’s 2011 GDP.In June 2011 Ben Ali and his wife (Leila Trabelsi) were convicted by a Tunisian court, in absentia, for theft and unlawful possession of cash and jewellery and sentenced to 35 years in prison (NB when Leila fled Tunisia, she is reported to have taken with her over one-and-a-half tons of gold valued at $50 million). While an international arrest warrant has been issued for Ben Ali’s arrest, Saudi Arabia has consistently refused Tunisia’s request to extradite him.In a dramatic about face, the Tunisian government sparked controversy when they tabled the draft National Reconciliation Act (in June 2015), paving the way for a potential amnesty. This followed a decision by Tunisian courts to annul the 2011 decree that had confiscated Ben Ali and his families assets, ordering that the be returned.Return of assets: To date funds totalling $68.8 million have been returned: $28.8 million from Lebanon (being the proceeds from a bank account held in the name of Ben Ali’s wife), and $40 million from Switzerland. Apart from this, are asset recovery cases pending in Switzerland ($28.5 million) and Canada ($2.6 million).4. Sani Abacha, President of Nigeria (1993 – 1998)Amount Embezzled: $2 billion to $5 billion | Years in Office: 5The first Nigerian Soldier to make full General without missing a single rank, Sani Abacha led the country’s ninth military coup since its independence, when he overthrew the transitional government of Chief Ernest Shonekanon in August 1993. The country’s seventh military head of state, Abacha was a serial coup d’état instigator, having previously played key roles in the 1966 counter-coup, and the 1983 and 1985 coups.Although promising a return to democracy, Abacha’s actions where anything but democratic. A year after taking power, he issued a decree that placed his government above the jurisdiction of the courts, a move that gave him absolute power. Backed by the Special Body Guard Unit (an armed force of between 2,000 to 3,000 men based at the presidential villa), Abacha purged the military, banned political activity and took control of the press.Despite appalling human rights abuses (which at one stage lead to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting approving the unprecedented step of suspending Nigeria from the Commonwealth) – from an economic perspective – Abacha’s five-year rule was a miracle. External debt was reduced from $36 billion to $27 billion, foreign-exchange reserves increased from $494 million to $9.6 billion, and inflation was slashed from 54% to 8.5%.While still shrouded in mystery, Abacha’s rule was cut short when he died of a suspected heart attack on 8 June 1998. During his five years in power, he and his family allegedly embezzled between $3 billion and $5 billion. According to the World Bank, part of this wealth was obtained through bribes paid by foreign companies doing business in Nigeria, and part stolen directly from the country’s Central Bank. The funds were laundered through a network of front companies in several jurisdictions, before being deposited into bank accounts (controlled by Abacha and his family) in Switzerland, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, Jersey and the Bahamas.In February 2014, sixteen years after his death, Abacha was (posthumously) awarded a Centenary Award as part of Nigeria’s 50th Independence Celebrations. According to the government, the award was in recognition of his “immense contribution to the nation’s development”.Return of assets: The return of the Abacha fortune remains one of the most colourful of all the leaders on the list. In return for dropping criminal prosecution (in 2002), the Abacha family agreed to return $1.2 billion taken from the Central Bank. Jersey returned a further $160 million the same year. This was followed by Switzerland, who in June 2006 (after numerous failed appeals by the Abacha family) agreed to repatriate $505 million. Ironically, according to Swiss and Nigerian advocacy groups, around half of this amount may have since been ‘re-stolen’ by corrupt officials!After a hiatus of five years Jersey returned a further $36 million and Liechtenstein $225 million (after the longest running financial court case in the principality’s history). In August 2014, a further $480 million worth of Abacha related bank deposits were frozen by the United States Department of Justice, the largest forfeiture in the agency’s history. Switzerland returned a further $380 million a year later.While over $2.5 billion has been returned to date, asset recovery cases are still pending in the Bahamas, Ireland, United Kingdom and the United States.3. Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire now Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (1965 – 1997)Amount Embezzled: $4 to $5 billion | Years in Office: 32The product of a missionary school education, Mobutu Sese Seko Koko Ngbendu wa za Banga (meaning “the all-powerful warrior who, because of endurance and an inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest leaving fire in his wake”), was a serial coup plotter. During the 1960 Congo Crises, he led the coup that ousted Patrice Lumumba, the country’s first democratically elected leader. In return, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Less than five years later he led a second coup, installing himself as President. Declaring a regime d’exception, he assumed sweeping powers, and went on to rule the country for almost a third of a century.The original ‘Big Man’ of Africa, Mobutu consolidated and kept power by creating a vast patronage network. Built on the exploitation of the country’s immense mineral wealth, Mobutu used it to effectively nullify any opposition. Endemic governmental corruption, mismanagement and neglect over a number of years, led to hyperinflation (4,000% p.a. by 1991), a large external debt, and massive currency devaluations. Civil unrest soon followed.Amidst all of this, Mobutu managed to amass one of the largest personal fortunes in the world. While the actual amount will never be known, he is alleged to have embezzled between $4 billion to $5 billion (an amount almost equivalent to the country’s foreign debt at the time it was forced to default on its international loans in 1989). His excesses where legendary, and included having the world’s leading pastry chef, Gaston Lenôtre, flown in from Paris by Concorde to personally deliver his birthday cake. While not publically condoned, corruption was so systemic under Mobutu, that at one stage he advised party delegates that “if you steal, do not steal too much at a time. You may be arrested … Yibana mayele – Steal cleverly, little by little”!Holding onto power for 32 years, Mobutu proved himself adept at maintaining rule in the face of internal rebellions, external invasions, and attempted coups. He finally relinquished power in May 1996, following an uprising led by Laurent Kabila (a Zairian Tutsi). In the space of just three weeks, the uprising turned into to a full-scale political rebellion. Mobutu, already terminally ill, fled to Togo and then to Morocco, where he died from prostate cancer the following year.Aside from the title as Africa’s most corrupt ruler, Mobutu is best known for his role in hosting the heavy weight world championship title fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, in Kinshasa in October 1974. Known as the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’, each fighter was paid $5 million for their appearance.Return of assets: While there has been talk of a complex network of Cayman Island shell companies, apart from a few Swiss bank accounts, little is known of the whereabouts of Mobutu’s wealth. In 2009, Switzerland unfroze $6.68 million worth of Mobutu’s assets, ending a failed 12-year attempt to repatriate funds back to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). At the centre of this decision was a lack of “cooperation” from the DRC government, who’s Deputy Prime Minster was one of Mobutu’s son. This lack of cooperation resulted in the funds being handed back to the Mobutu family.2. Ferdinand Marcos, President of the Philippines (1965 – 1986)Amount Embezzled: $5 billion to $10 billion | Years in Office: 21Claiming to be the country’s ‘most decorated war hero’ (a title now discredited, with only 3 of the 27 medals he claimed to have been awarded during the Second World War shown to be true), Ferdinand Marcos was elected the 10th President of the Philippine’s in 1965. In September 1972, mid-way through his second term, fears of a communist takeover resulted in Marcos dissolving Congress and declaring martial law. It stayed in place for the next decade. He was finally ousted by the People Power Revolution in February 1986, and fled to the United States, where he lived in exile until his death in Hawaii three-and-a-half years later.During his 21 years in power, the Philippines became one of the most heavily indebted countries in Asia. External debts increased from $360 million (in 1962) to $28 billion (by 1986). Wages fell by roughly one third, and the number of people living below the poverty line almost doubled (from 18 million to 35 million).Over the same period, Marcos is alleged to have embezzled between $5 billion and $10 billion. According to the World Bank, the bulk of this wealth was accumulated through six key channels: takeover of large private enterprises; creation of state-owned monopolies in key sectors of the economy; awarding of government loans to private individuals acting as fronts for Marcos or his associates; directly raiding the country’s treasury and other government financial institutions; kickbacks and commissions from firms working in the Philippines; and skimming off foreign aid and other forms of international assistance. The proceeds were laundered through shell corporations, then invested in real estate within the United States; or deposited into various domestic and offshore banking institutions, using a mixture of pseudonyms, numbered accounts and code names.Known for their lavish living, an inventory of assets left at the Malacanang Palace in Manila (taken soon after their exile) included over a thousand pairs of shoes belonging to the First Lady, 888 handbags, 71 pairs of sunglasses and 65 parasols. On their arrival in the United States, jewellery, now valued at over $21 million, was seized by the US Bureau of Customs and returned to the Philippines. Currently being used as a “virtual exhibit” in an online anti-corruption campaign, the current government has recently announced plans to auction if off.While Imelda Marcos was found guilty on corruption charges in the mid-1990s and sentenced to a minimum of 12 years in prison, the conviction was overturned on appeal. She is currently a member of the House of Representatives, while her son, Ferdinand Jr., is a Senator (having recently failed in his bid to become the country’s Vice President in the May 9 presidential polls). Her daughter, Imee, is the governor of their home province, Ilocos Norte.Return of assets: Since its inception in 1986, The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), a quasi-judicial agency established to recover the ill-gotten wealth accumulated during the Marcos regime, has managed to recover nearly $3.6 billion in assets. Included in this is $688 million returned by Switzerland in 2004. The total costs incurred in achieving this have been around $61 million. If civil asset recovery cases still pending in Switzerland, the Philippines, Singapore and the United States are successful, recovery efforts could reach $4.2 billion by the time the PCGG winds-up.1. Mohamed Suharto, President of Indonesia (1967 – 1998)Amount Embezzled: $15 billion to $35 billion | Years in Office: 31Taking top spot in our list of most corrupt world leaders of recent history is President Mohamed Suharto of Indonesia. The country’s second president, Suharto gained control of the government in 1967 (soon after a failed left-wing coup) and went on to rule for the next 31 years.Suharto’s ‘New Order’ policy (implemented soon after taking power) was built on a strong, centralised military-dominated government, which became critical to maintaining stability over a diverse, sprawling country of over 13,000 islands. A strong anti-Communist stance won him economic and diplomatic support from the West; while rapid and sustained economic growth, and dramatically improving health, education and living standards, guaranteed him popular support at home.Between 1965 and 1996, Indonesia’s GNP averaged a remarkable 6.7% per annum, with GDP increasing from $806 to $4,114 per capita. By 1997, Indonesia’s poverty rate had fallen to 11% (from 45% in 1970), life expectancy was 67 years (up from 47 years in 1966), infant mortality had been cut by more than 60%, and the country had reached rice self-sufficiency (an achievement which earned Suharto a gold medal from the FAO).By the mid-1990s however, growing authoritarianism and widespread corruption had sown the seeds of discontent. The same economic growth that had ensured Suharto’s popularity in the 1970s and 1980s, had resulted in a rapid expansion of what Indonesians had dubbed KKN: Korupsi (corruption), Kolusi (collusion) and Nepotisme(nepotism).Using a system of patronage to ensure loyalty, Suharto managed to amass a fortune of between $15 billion and $35 billion. The control of state-run monopolies, access to exclusive supply contracts and special tax breaks were given to companies owned by his four children, family members and close friends. Many organisations included a Suharto crony in various business activities, as it became the only way of reducing the ‘uncertainties’ caused by bureaucratic red tape. In return, kickbacks and tribute payments (usually cloaked as charitable donations) were made to dozens of foundations (‘yayasams’) overseen by Suharto. While created to ‘assist’ with the construction of rural schools and hospitals, they effectively functioned as the President’s personal piggy bank. Donating millions to yayasams became part of the cost of doing business in Indonesia, with financial institutions required to contribute 2.5% of their annual profits each year. According to Robert Elson, Suharto’s biographer:“corruption [was] a well-managed franchise, like McDonald’s or Subway … Everybody knew how much you had to pay and to whom. Suharto didn’t invent the depth and breadth of corruption. What he did was to manage it on a scale that no one had ever been able to do before.”In 1998 the tide turned when the Asian Financial Crises took Indonesia to the brink of economic collapse. Rising discontent led to riots and demonstrations forcing Suharto to resign. Two years later he was charged with misusing $550 million from seven charities he controlled while president, and temporarily placed under house arrest. Pronounced to ill to stand trial, another attempt (two years later) ended the same way. Finally, in July 2007, a $1.5 billion civil lawsuit was filed against Suharto. The case was never heard, as he died a few months later.Return of assets: In 2010, the Indonesian government successfully brought a private civil action against the Suharto family for the recovery of $307.4 million. Apart from this (and the cases mentioned above), the only other case recorded, relates to $50.4 million worth of assets controlled by Suharto’s son, “Tommy”, which was frozen by Guernsey in 2002. Tommy subsequently served five years of a 15-year prison sentence for ordering the murder of the Indonesian Supreme Court judge who convicted him of corruption in connection to a (unrelated) multimillion-dollar real estate scam case.Other contenders for the most corrupt world leaderWhile the ten leaders listed above stood out, they were not the only ones vying for the title of the world’s most corrupt leader. Other strong contenders included Ukraine’s Viktor Yanukovych, who is alleged to have kept a log book showing that he had paid $2 billion in bribes while in office (or $1.4 million for each day he was president). Then there is Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of Equatorial Guinea. With a personal fortune thought to be around $600 million, in 2003, Obiang took personal control of the country’s treasury, arguing that this personal ‘intervention’ was the only way to prevent civil servants from being ‘tempted’ to engage in corrupt practices. The following year he transferred $700 million into various US bank accounts controlled by himself and his family.Another potential candidate worth mentioning (as no list would be complete without him) is Italy’s enigmatic Silvio Berlusconi. With a personal net worth thought to be around $9 billion, Berlusconi estimated (in 2009) that his 2,500+ court appearances, in 106 corruption related trials spanning two decades, had cost him more than $200 million in legal fees! Notwithstanding this, Italians still elected him president!Finally, in an effort to ensure gender equality, it is worth mentioning that a lone female also made the list of contenders. While President Marcos of the Philippines managed to make it to number two on the list of most corrupt world leaders of recent history, a 2007 poll carried out by Pulse Asia, indicated that 42% of his countrymen (and women) felt that Philippine’s most corrupt leader of all time wasn’t Ferdinand Marcus … but Gloria Macapagal Arroyo!Is there a world leader that you feel should have made the list but didn’t? If so, share it with us in the comments section below, as I’d love to hear from you.About the author: Jeremy Sandbrook is the Chief Executive ofIntegritas360, a global social enterprise that helps charities and NGOs/NFPs ‘corruption-proof’ themselves. An internationally recognised anti-corruption expert, he has spent the last decade working in the international development sector, predominantly in Africa, Europe and Australasia. Jeremy also lectures on the topic at the University of Sydney’s Centre for Continuing Education.Key sources: While the above rankings were based on information sourced from various articles, heavy reliance was placed on the Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative (established by the World Bank Group and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in 2007) and Transparency International.