Former Chief of U.N. Section Is Guilty of Fraud and Bribery 
June 8, 2007
New York Times
Original Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/world/08nations.html
A former official of the United Nations was convicted yesterday of charges that he helped a friend to secure $100 million in contracts with the organization in exchange for a huge discount on two luxury Manhattan apartments and cash.
The official, Sanjaya Bahel, 57, was chief of the United Nations’ Commodity Procurement Section from 1999 to 2003. He had maintained his innocence after his arrest in November.
Mr. Bahel was convicted of bribery, wire fraud and mail fraud. The charges carry a potential penalty of up to 30 years in prison.
His onetime co-defendant, Nishan Kohli, whose family owned the businesses involved, pleaded guilty to bribery and testified against Mr. Bahel. Mr. Kohli said Mr. Bahel had given his family so much inside information about pending contracts that the Kohlis came to think of Mr. Bahel as a business partner.
Mr. Kohli, of Miami, testified in United States District Court in Manhattan that Mr. Bahel met Mr. Kohli’s father, Nanak Kohli, when both men worked in Washington in the 1980s and socialized with others who had immigrated from India.
The younger Mr. Kohli said the family joined Mr. Bahel to expand revenues for its businesses by securing about two dozen United Nations contracts.
As the favors poured in, the Kohlis rewarded Mr. Bahel with modest gifts like a laptop computer and plane tickets, Mr. Kohli testified. Eventually, though, the Kohlis let Mr. Bahel rent two luxury Midtown Manhattan apartments at a huge discount. They later sold the apartments to him for less than the market value, Mr. Kohli said.
Mr. Kohli said Mr. Bahel advised the family how to qualify for United Nations contracts they otherwise might not have gotten and even wrote some of the family’s correspondence with the United Nations.
He said the family gave Mr. Bahel a cellphone so hundreds of calls related to Mr. Bahel’s work for the Kohli businesses would not be seen by other United Nations executives.
Mr. Kohli also testified that he bribed two United Nations procurement officers with a $6,000 night on the town.