Doping and Match Fixing: Has Tennis Crossed the Line?

News of professional tennis player Maria Sharapova failing a drug test at the Australian Open has spread rapidly, especially since tennis is generally considered a more sophisticated sport, and people don’t usually think of tennis players when they think about athletes that are doping (see the video below of the press conference where Sharapova made the announcement). While Sharapova says that the drug she was taking was a medicine given to her for health reasons that was only just recently banned by WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency), she still takes responsibility for taking it after it became a banned substance. Additionally, this situation has brought to light other instances of potential fraud in professional tennis, including doping and fixing matches.

Lance Armstrong Allegedly Bribed USADA

60 Minutes is going to air a segment on Lance Armstrong on Wednesday, January 9th, at 10 pm Eastern. The CBS News website states that they will report that someone representing Lance offered USADA a $250,000 "donation" in 2004. Travis Tygart, USADA CEO, is quoted as saying "We had no hesitation in rejecting that offer."

I suppose the truth about Lance will trickle out for years to come...It definitely makes a good case study for anyone out there teaching about fraud, corruption and organized crime. It makes me wonder if Lance's real name ends in Gambino or Bonanno...Maybe Armstrongo...

Fraud and the Mortgage Meltdown

Charles Ferguson, the person who created the documentary on the mortgage meltdown "Inside Job," has written a book on the topic titled "Inside Job: The Financiers Who Pulled Off the Heist of the Century." I can only seem to find it on Amazon's UK website so I don't know if it will be available in the US. In any case, this article in the Guardian, written by Ferguson, has some interesting comments about the fact that the Obama administration and the US Justice Department is not prosecuting anyone. Ferguson also names several banks that he claims were complicit in the meltdown and committed various forms of fraud. He says that It's pretty disheartening to think this much corruption exists in the financial industry and the government isn't doing much to hold anyone accountable for it. Here are a few excerpts:

Ever wonder what's in your tomato paste?

When bribes are paid to get business deals, the real losers are often the consumer who ends up paying either higher prices or gets lower quality goods or both. The NY Times reports that an investigation shows that the food industry has had significant, if not, widespread corruption. For example, a tomato vendor, SK Foods, paid bribes to numerous food companies, including Kraft, to sell their tomatoes at inflated prices and sometimes to give the company tainted, moldy tomatoes. Here are some juicy excerpts from the NY Times article:

The scheme, as laid out by federal prosecutors, has two parts. Officials say that (officials) at SK Foods greased the palms of a handful of corporate buyers in exchange for lucrative contracts and confidential information on bids submitted by competitors. This most likely drove up ingredient prices for the big food companies.

In addition ... SK Foods shipped its customers millions of pounds of bulk tomato paste and puree that fell short of basic quality standards... Often that meant mold counts so high the sale should have been prohibited under federal law...

The scope of the tainted shipments was much broader than the bribery scheme, touching more than 55 companies. In some cases...the tainted ingredients wound up in food sold to consumers.

The article also talks about how tone at the top appears to have affected some major companies in the food industry and perhaps the entire industry. The article reads: “If you have a couple of people who are willing to bend the rules and they set that tone from the top, that can spread very quickly in that company and in that niche of the industry, and that’s what happened here,”

This shows how corruption in business can even taint your spaghetti sauce!