Alexander Yakovlev was a long-serving tenured member of the United Nations procurement department who was involved in the Oil-for-Food Programme scandal and had other allegations of impropriety.
The same day he pleaded guilty to wire fraud under the Oil-for-Food Programme, making him the first U.N. official to face criminal charges in connection with the scandal-tainted operation.
Alexander Yakovlev also pleaded guilty in federal court to charges of wire fraud and money laundering for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from U.N. contractors in his work outside oil-for-food.
[2][3] The diplomat was accused by the investigators of taking nearly $1 million in bribes, which also includes alleged illicit dealings with Compass Group PLC's subsidiary Eurest Support Services (ESS) and its terminated CEO Peter R. Harris and senior executive Andy Seiwert.
Yakovlev is alleged to have conducted himself improperly in 1996 when he indirectly tried to get bribes from Société Générale de Surveillance S.A.