Tobacco giant mum on damning probe

British American Tobacco (BAT) has yet to deny it paid a bribe to former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. This follows an investigation that suggests that one of the UK's biggest firms was involved in negotiations to pay between $300 000 and $500 000 to Mugabe's Zanu-PF party in 2013. In a joint investigation with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the University of Bath, BBC Panorama obtained thousands of leaked documents. They show how BAT funded a network of almost 200 secret informants in southern Africa. Most of this work was outsourced to a South African private security company called Forensic Security Services. BBC News reports that BAT has said it was helping the SA government tackle illicit cigarettes and its work in this field has been mischaracterised – but evidence strongly suggests it used security companies to undermine competitors with bribes, phone taps and tracking devices. Campaigning organisation Transparency International has called for the UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to investigate the company in light of the investigation BAT said it fully cooperated with a previous SFO investigation, which ended earlier this year and resulted in no action being taken.