Edward L. Doheny prices were high. The Mexican Petroleum Company was the largest in Mexico, and Mexico was the largest oil producer in the world. In 1922 Albert B. Fall, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, leased the oil field at Elk Hills, California, to the Pan American Petroleum & Transport Company. Around the same time, the Teapot Dome Field in Wyoming was leased to Sinclair Consolidated Oil Corporation. Both oilfields were part of the US Navy's petroleum reserves. Neither lease was subject to competitive bidding. In 1924 rumors about corruption in the deals escalated into the Teapot Dome scandal. Doheny's reputation was somewhat
Barmat scandal without four months of media barrage aimed at discrediting the Republic. In early 1928 Julius and Henri Barmat were sentenced to 11 months and 6 months imprisonment for bribery, respectively. After serving his sentence, Julius Barmat left Germany for the Low Countries. He was caught once again in another corruption scandal in which he was accused of bribery in order to obtain loans which ended up defrauding the Belgian National Bank of 34 million gold francs. He committed suicide in 1937. Barmat scandal The Barmat Scandal in 1924 and 1925 in Weimar Republic implicated the Social Democratic Party of Germany