A US federal court on Wednesday convicted a former high-ranking United Nations official of conspiring to launder hundreds of thousands of dollars in a scheme to help companies win lucrative UN contracts.

A Manhattan jury took less than an hour to deliver the verdict on Vladimir Kuznetsov, a 49-year-old Russian national who had served as chairman of an influential UN financial advisory committee known as the ACABQ. Sentencing is set for June 25. According to a September 2005 indictment, Mr Kuznetsov “laundered hundreds of thousands of dollars in criminal proceeds” obtained by a UN procurement officer from about 2000 through to June 2005.