Washington ? A government agency that helps U.S. businesses investing in developing countries has approved millions of dollars of loans to companies whose owners did business with Mafia figures and rebels in a bloody African conflict, records show.

The agency also awarded insurance to assist a company that is part of a Mexican energy conglomerate ordered by the Internal Revenue Service to pay more than $70 million in back taxes.

The Overseas Private Investment Corp., which operates with about $5 billion in reserves, says it conducts background checks before awarding loans or insurance. But the agency acknowledged it missed some negative information about its clients that The Associated Press found in a review of public records.

An OPIC spokesman said the agency checked some of the same public databases where the AP found the information.

For instance, the agency put on hold a $5 million loan to Globus International Resources Corp. “pending some further reviews” after the AP raised questions about evidence introduced in court showing Globus did business in the 1990s with Mafia figures who later were convicted of federal crimes.

Globus is not related to International Communications Systems Inc., which got an OPIC loan last year to market phone cards in Moldova under the brand name GlobUS.

Globus gave hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of shares to four Mafia stockbrokers and a mob-owned company between 1996 and 2000, according to court and Securities and Exchange Commission records.

Prosecutors alleged in 2000 that Globus was one of 19 companies that had their stock manipulated by the Mafia. The government never charged either Globus or its officials with crimes.

“Our due diligence didn’t turn up anything like that,” OPIC lawyer Eli Landy told AP.

An OPIC spokesman defended the agency’s background checks. “We feel that the due diligence we do is very good and very thorough and we stand by that,” Lawrence Spinelli said.

In 2003, OPIC agreed to a $25 million loan for a U.S. company owned by Jean-Raymond Boulle, a mining magnate whose company has been cited by the United Nations for unethical dealings with rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s civil war.