Last week I praised Afghan Minister of Mines Mohammad Adel as an “honest technocrat.”

With egg all over my face I have to report that he is alleged to have taken $30 million in bribes to award China the copper contract at Anyak. I fear a perfect example of Wretchard’s thesis of the Economic Gangster.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601091&sid=aW52kQwvDhyo

http://money.canoe.ca/News/Sectors/Mining/2009/11/01/11595746-ap.html

A lot of U.S. taxpayer money went into both studying this enormous copper deposit and into assisting the Afghans in developing a regulatory structure to manage this kind of resource. Whoops.