New York, Oct 6 (EFE).– A former president of the U.N. General Assembly is among six people arrested in a multimillion-dollar corruption case, U.S. authorities announced Tuesday.

John Ashe, who represented Antigua and Barbuda at the United Nations and presided over the General Assembly in 2013-2014, is accused of accepting more than $500,000 in bribes from a Chinese billionaire developer who wanted U.N. endorsement for a conference center he was building in Macao, according to court documents released Tuesday.

He also seems to have pocketed over $800,000 from Chinese businessmen to promote their interests at the U.N. and in Antigua and Barbuda.

The other suspects in custody include the Dominican Republic’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, Francis Lorenzo, federal prosecutors said.

Right in the middle of the case is mogul Ng Lap Seng, arrested last month by customs agents in New York for smuggling $4.5 million into the United States illegally.

According to the investigation, Ng paid off Ashe to sell U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the idea of making the Macao conference center into a major United Nations facility.

The bribes were presumably facilitated by two of the accused, including Lorenzo, said to have been on Ng’s payroll.

Ashe repeatedly asked for bribes, which included paying for his luxury vacations and the construction of a basketball court at his New York residence, authorities said.

In all, the Antigua and Barbuda diplomat deposited between 2012 and 2014 more than $3 million from abroad in his U.S. bank accounts, from which he withdrew money for his personal expenses and transferred vast sums to other accounts.

The documents published Tuesday by federal prosecutors reveal many details of the relationships among those in custody, including records of e-mail messages and of trips to different destinations around the world.

Aside from the corruption charges, Ashe is accused of tax fraud in the United States for not declaring more than $1.2 million of his income.

Prosecutors estimate Ng’s fortune at some $1.8 billion, obtained chiefly through real estate developments in Macao. EFE