NEW INVESTIGATIONS

Shell companies accused of tax evasion have sold large amounts of Ukrainian grain throughout Europe.

The trade in “black grain” has defrauded the state of at least $140 million in 2022 alone, according to Ukrainian prosecutors.

Using customs data, OCCRP investigated the European importers who did business with these suspect companies. Reporters found several questionable firms that had been ordered to dissolve and others whose “owners” or “directors” had been recruited in a psychiatric hospital. Major international agriculture traders also imported grain through some of the suspect companies.

🌐 The Big Picture: Grain exports — like corn, barley, and wheat — are key for Ukraine’s economy.

This investigation shows how these precious commodities have been exported by shell companies run from the shadows. According to prosecutors, these firms have dodged taxes, denying Ukraine much-needed wartime revenue. Various European importers also appear to be complicit.

>> Read the full story

EU policy encourages fuel companies to blend sustainable biofuels into the gas and diesel they sell to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

But it’s difficult to distinguish between traditional biofuels and next-generation alternatives. Scammers have been exploiting this system by passing off fuels made from soybeans as a more sustainable — and expensive — biofuel made from used cooking oil (UCO), according to several European law enforcement agencies.

🌐 The Big Picture: Fraud in the UCO sector is not only damaging the EU’s budget, but undermining the bloc’s climate goals.

Traditional feedstocks for biofuels, like soy and palm oil, are considered so environmentally damaging that the EU has agreed to phase them out by 2030. This story shows that eliminating them may be more difficult than expected. 

>> Read the full story

Syria has become a hub for the export of Captagon, a synthetic stimulant wildly popular in the Middle East that is sold for up to $20 per pill. Officers in neighboring countries are battling smugglers of the drug who are equipped with machine guns, night-vision goggles, and drones.

Reporters found evidence of ties between some of these traffickers and Syrian security forces.

Our investigation with the BBC into this growing “drug war” and its ramifications. 

🌐 The Big Picture: Syria has been scrambling for revenue since the civil war decimated its economy. The government appears to have turned to the lucrative Captagon trade as part of the solution. Experts say the wider region is paying the price. 

>> Read the full story

💼💰 French real estate has become a magnet for dirty money around the world.

The OCCRP network uncovered a number of posh French properties linked to high-profile Latin Americans accused of corruption and money laundering. 

🌐 The Big Picture: This investigation shows the importance of publicly-accessible registries of “ultimate beneficial ownership,” which reporters used to uncover these luxury properties. 

France has maintained an open UBO database, but other EU member states have shuttered theirs since the European Court of Justice struck down a key measure that required making them public. 

>> Read the full story

MORE #ROTENBERGFILES

➡️ What’s it like for a Western lawyer to work for a Russian oligarch? Leaked emails reveal the assignments one distinguished Monaco lawyer carried out for Boris Rotenberg, who spent considerable time in the French Riviera.

This included an abortive PR campaign to distance Rotenberg from the construction of Russia’s bridge to Crimea after the peninsula’s illegal annexation.

➡️ An American Rotenberg? The wife of Boris Rotenberg, one of Russia’s most prominent oligarchs, had a U.S. passport, leaked emails and documents show.

THE OCCRP NETWORK

🇧🇬 BIRD: The French intelligence firm Avisa Partners issued a statement addressing why it compiled a dossier of information about the founder of our Bulgarian member center. Avisa’s explanation was part of a larger announcement that the firm dropped lawsuits against two French media outlets. 

🇷🇺 IStories: An academy in Chechnya has become one of the main recruitment centers for volunteers in the Kremlin’s war effort. Our Russian member center reveals the oligarch who finances the intiative. 

🇳🇱 Follow The Money: Our Dutch partner reports that George Soros’s Open Society Foundations — a donor to OCCRP — has invested billions of dollars through a hedge fund in the Cayman Islands, effectively shielding the investments from U.S. authorities and public scrutiny.

CORRUPTION NEWS

🇬🇧 United Kingdom: The U.K. enacted a new law that will restrict lawyers from advising people and entities in business matters that could benefit Russia, including help avoiding sanctions.

🇷🇴 Romania: A Romanian public official was demoted after reporting an alleged scheme to defraud the state of millions of dollars. The retaliation was carried out despite Romania’s whistleblower protection legislation, which was passed as a precondition to access additional EU funds. 

🇦🇺 Australia: Former New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been accused of “serious corrupt conduct” by the state’s corruption watchdog for failing to disclose a romantic relationship with a lawmaker who stood to benefit from a public grant that Berejiklian oversaw.

The lawmaker has also admitted to receiving cash as part of a scheme for Chinese nationals to fraudulently acquire visas.

ORGANIZED CRIME NEWS

🇪🇺 Europe: The European Court of Justice is deciding whether communications from Encrochat, a company that offered encrypted smartphones, can be lawfully used as evidence in court.

The anticipated decision has major implications for digital privacy and law enforcement operations. Europol claims that international police’s hack of Encrochat has resulted in over 6,500 arrests of suspected members of organized crime groups.

🇺🇸 United States: InsightCrime published an investigative report on how U.S. immigration policy influences Mexican cartels’ criminal enterprises, including human smuggling, extortion, and kidnapping.