N.Y. federal prosecutors pursue foreign cases aggressively

Federal prosecutors in New York are ratcheting up an aggressive strategy to pursue terrorists, drug traffickers and corrupt public officials who operate on foreign soil.
The expansion of traditional crime-fighting boundaries, which has its roots in an approach begun by the office in the 1990s, has been controversial among experts, with some questioning whether the effort is the best use of the U.S. government's limited resources. But advocates say that using the long arm of American law to apprehend international figures whose crimes involve the United States might be the only way to attack an increasingly sophisticated global criminal threat.
Former Guatemalan president Alfonso Portillo became the latest target when he was arrested this week by police in Guatemala after money-laundering charges were unsealed in New York. A federal grand jury in Manhattan accused Portillo of conspiring to divert millions of dollars in military funds and donations intended to buy children's books into the pockets of relatives and close political aides. Some of the Guatemalan money found its way into U.S. banks, including the institution once known as Riggs Bank in the District, court papers say.
Since taking office last year, Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, has launched or reemphasized criminal cases against a young Somali pirate accused of hijacking the ship Maersk Alabama in the Indian Ocean; three African men charged with conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism in support of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb; and a Guantanamo Bay detainee who had been charged in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa, which killed 224 people...more