15 International Corporations Guilty of Serious Crimes
Carly Tennes
Published
07/12/2024
in
creepy
While the pressures of late-stage capitalism make it hard for any successful company to not be involved in some shady business, a few bad eggs prove just how far corporate greed can go, knowingly poisoning residents of small towns, forcing people to buy unnecessary products and overall being so bad that they make the Tyrell Corporation look like a cute, quirky startup.
From Chiquita's funding of death squads to Crumbl franchises using child labor, here are 15 international corporations accused of serious crimes.
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1. Apple and Samsung
“Italy fined Apple and Samsung €10m and €3m respectively for releasing software updates which deliberately slowed down their phones, thus encouraging new purchases.” -
2. Marriott
“Marriott was fined $600,000 by the FCC in 2014 for blocking customers' personal Wi-Fi so customers were forced to pay for internet.” -
3. McDonald's
”McDonald's was fined $4 million in 1999 for not reporting 400+ injuries of children using Big Mac Climber jungle gyms, where children climbed up a tube from the ground and played between two giant metal hamburger buns. The last Big Mac Climbers were removed from McDonald's playgrounds in 1997.” -
4. PepsiCo
“A man sued PepsiCo after the company refused to redeem his 7,000,000 Pepsi Points for a AV-8 Harrier II jump jet as advertised in their commercial.” -
5. Wachovia
“The defunct bank Wachovia laundered $378.4 billion between 2004 - 2007 for the Mexican and Colombia Cartels. They had to forfeit $110mil and were only fined $50mil.” -
6. BP
No alarms were triggered during the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion. They had been turned off to prevent workers from being awoken by false alarms. The spill dumped 134 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico. Thousands of marine animals were killed and thousands of cleanup workers were sickened. -
7. Unilever and Procter & Gamble
“Unilever and Procter & Gamble have been fined $456M for fixing washing powder prices in 8 European countries in 2011. The fines were discounted by 10% after the 2 industry giants admitted running a cartel. Their rival Henkel, who provided the tip-off, was not fined in return.” -
8. FTX
In 2024, disgraced FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison after stealing $8 billion from his customers. He reportedly had told his employees to use these funds to help ameliorate losses from FTX’s sister company, Alameda Research run by his former, allegedly o—y having girlfriend, Caroline Ellison. -
9. Philip Morris
“In 1999, Philip Morris attempted to convince the government of the Czech Republic that smoking was highly beneficial to the country, as more people would die earlier as a result, thus letting the government save millions on pensions, hospitals, and housing for elderly citizens.” -
10. Crumbl Cookies
“In December 2022, 11 Crumbl Cookies franchises across six U.S. states were fined by the Department of Labor for violations of child labor laws by hiring minors. In total, the Crumbl franchisees were fined $57,854.” -
11. Enron
“Tapes revealed that Enron shut down a power station in California and created an artificial power shortage, deliberately aggravating the 2001 California Energy Crisis, so they could raise prices and cost residents billions in surcharges.” -
12. Chiquita
In 2024, Chiquita Brands International was forced to pay $25 million due to their funding of Columbian paramilitary groups, far right death squads that shielded companies and other wealthy landowners from rebels. -
13. Nestlé
“Nestlé aggressively distributes free formula samples in developing countries till the supplementation has interfered with the mother's lactation. After that the family must continue to buy the formula since the mother is no longer able to produce milk on her own.” -
14. DuPont
“DuPont, who makes Teflon products like non-stick cookware, had been dumping toxic waste chemicals from Teflon production in the waters of Parkersburg, West Virginia for decades.” -
15. Johnson & Johnson
“Johnson & Johnson knew there was Asbestos in Baby Powder for decades.”
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