View this email in your browser ([link removed])
[link removed]

Greetings From Amsterdam,

Wow. What a month November has been for OCCRP. In the last 17 days, we’ve published three major investigative projects, two of which will be the focus of this week’s newsletter.

Our network is also under attack, again. This time in India, where journalists have been targets of state intimidation and surveillance, and North Macedonia, where a lawsuit against our member center could set a dangerous precedent for press freedom in the region.

But before we share the latest in global corruption, we’d like to give a big thank you to everyone who attended our webinar yesterday about organized crime in Latin America.

We’ll send a recording of the discussion — and answers to the remaining audience questions — to members of our Accomplice program on Monday.

Now, let’s dig in.

🧭 NAVIGATE THIS NEWSLETTER

1. Big New Project: Cyprus Confidential
2. More NarcoFiles: A Venezuelan gang // The Shark Fin Trade
3. The OCCRP Network: Threats in North Macedonia and India
4. Big Journalism News: Landmark charter on AI
5. The OCCRP Podcast: The Kremlin and Catalonian Independence
6. Corruption News: Portugal Scandal Hinders EU Lithium Ambitions
7. Global Crime News: Stolen Fossils Returned to Argentina


**
🇨🇾 CYPRUS CONFIDENTIAL 🤫
------------------------------------------------------------
[link removed]

More than 3.6 million documents leaked from Cypriot corporate service providers offer unprecedented insight into how these firms have helped Russian oligarchs hide their wealth. In one case, a global auditing firm may have violated western sanctions in doing so.

❓ What is a Corporate Service Provider? The term applies to a broad category of companies that provide services such as consulting, legal support, asset management, and communications to other entities. Wealthy individuals often hire service providers to lower their tax burden, or buy citizenship in other countries.

Like Cyprus Confidential, the Panama Papers and Pandora Papers were based on leaks from corporate service providers.

➡️ How PwC Cyprus Helped a Russian Billionaire: Staff at the Cypriot branch of the auditing giant PwC arranged a transfer of Alexey Mordashov’s stake in TUI Group –– a major tourism and leisure company –– to his life partner just as the EU sanctioned him in February 2022.

Now, leaked documents suggest the transfer may not have been finalized before Mordashov was blacklisted, raising serious questions about whether PwC Cyprus breached EU sanctions.

PwC worked closely with Cypcodirect Ltd, one of the corporate service providers whose documents form part of the leak.
>>Read the full story ([link removed])

➡️ Signs of Foul Play in Premier League: Former Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich’s offshore companies made backchannel payments worth tens of millions of dollars to football agents, clubs, scouts, and directors. The payments did not go through Chelsea’s books and may have violated rules that limit club spending. Some examples include:
* On the same day Chelsea FC signed the coveted football manager Antonio Conte, a British Virgin Islands company owned by Abramovich agreed to pay 10 million pounds to Federico Pastorello, an Italian football agent who has told media he was “very involved” when Conte was manager.
* Abramovich’s offshore firms also loaned tens of millions of dollars to a company ultimately owned by the son of the president of CSKA Moscow, a rival football team that played in the same UEFA competition as Chelsea. The transactions raise questions about Abramovich’s influence over the team’s owners, and a possible conflict of interest.

>> Read the full story ([link removed])


🌐 The Big Picture: When Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, the island became a gateway into the bloc for Russian elites who have paid fortunes to financial firms to manage, move, and conceal their wealth.

Our reporting shows just how far these firms in Cyprus have been willing to go for their Russian clients.

The Cyprus Confidential project was led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and Paper Trail Media.

>> See the full project ([link removed])
Join the fight against corruption.
SUPPORT OCCRP ([link removed])


** MORE NARCOFILES
------------------------------------------------------------
Last week, we released the first batch of stories from our NarcoFiles project. Since then, we’ve published more reporting based on the leak of 7+ million emails from the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office:
[link removed]

🇻🇪 Meet the ‘Tren de Aragua’: From its birth in a Venezuelan prison, the gang has spread to half a dozen countries in South America, bringing kidnapping, drug trafficking, and contract killings with it. Now, there are signs that gang members are heading to the United States. >> Read the full story ([link removed])

🦈 Wildlife Trafficking: The seizure of a shipment of shark fins destined for Hong Kong indicates that Latin American organized crime may be breaking into the business of feeding China’s appetite for protected wildlife products. >> Read the full story. ([link removed])


** ATTACKS ON THE OCCRP NETWORK
------------------------------------------------------------
🇲🇰 Attack on IRLMacedonia: A civil court in North Macedonia recently ruled against our member center in a defamation case that has all the markings of a SLAPP – the vexatious lawsuits designed to silence journalists.

The presiding judge advised the Ministry of Justice to shut down IRLMacedonia, incorrectly arguing that it lacks the right to publish media content.
[link removed]

In North Macedonia, digital newsrooms like IRL are not licensed by the media regulatory body which oversees broadcast and print journalism. But this does not affect their status as journalists.

The plaintiff is a businessman who was identified in an IRL documentary as potentially playing a role in the import of a highly polluting fuel oil that was used in public institutions throughout North Macedonia. He denies this. You can read the investigation OCCRP co-published here ([link removed]) .

🇮🇳 Attack on Our Indian Colleagues: Since OCCRP published an investigation into the major Indian conglomerate Adani Group, two of the reporters behind the story have been targeted by state intimidation and surveillance attempts. ([link removed])

Ravi Nair and Anand Mangnale were first warned by Apple that they were the target of state-sponsored cyberattacks. The threat alerts did not name the perpetrator.

According to the security scanner iVerify, Magnale’s phone was targeted with Pegasus malware hours after pre-publication questions were sent to the Adani Group in August. There is no evidence the Adani Group had any role in the use of Pegasus, which is only licensed to governments.

The two were also summoned by police last month in Gujarat for questioning related to their reporting on Adani.


** MORE FROM THE OCCRP NETWORK
------------------------------------------------------------

🇭🇺 Direkt36: Hungary has some of the highest mortality rates from hospital infections in Europe. Our Hungarian member center made a gripping documentary ([link removed]) about this ongoing healthcare crisis and the state’s efforts to conceal the death count.

🇳🇱 Follow The Money: Our Dutch partner reports that the European Commission is accused of missing some 90 percent ([link removed]) of suspected fraud cases involving the bloc’s money.


** JOURNALISM NEWS
------------------------------------------------------------

🤖 ([link removed]) ⚖️ Some Rules for Artificial Intelligence in Journalism: Few industries will be affected by the rise of AI more than journalism.

Last week, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published the “Paris Charter,” which establishes a guiding set of ethics and standards about how to harness AI transparently, fairly and for societal benefit.

OCCRP was one of the 16 partners brought together by RSF to draft the charter ([link removed]) , which outlines 10 principles, including the necessity for labels that distinguish between authentic and synthetic content.

🇷🇴 📰 Legendary Romanian Newspaper Shuttered: The Swiss publishing company Ringier Sports Media Group (RSMG) abruptly shut down the print edition of Gazeta Sporturilor ([link removed]) . The 99-year-old Romanian newspaper was known for its investigative reporting, which didn’t always stick to sports.

Gazeta Sporturilor's most well-known investigation was into the 2015 fire of the Colectiv nightclub that killed 64 people. The outlet’s reporting on the fire, which exposed deep corruption in the healthcare industry, was the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary Collective.

The closure –– which RSMG claimed was due to financial losses –– comes after journalists accused the Swiss company’s officials of asking for advanced copies of articles concerning advertisers, primarily in the gambling industry.


** OCCRP PODCAST
------------------------------------------------------------

🇷🇺 Russian Meddling in Catalonia –– A Playbook in Destabilization: Catalonia’s president received a shocking proposal the day before a historic vote to declare independence from Spain.

A mysterious Russian offered $500 billion and 10,000 armed soldiers to make the break with Madrid and create a cryptocurrency haven. In the latest episode of the "Dirty Deeds" podcast, our reporters explain how they uncovered this historic meeting:
🎧 LISTEN HERE ([link removed])


** CORRUPTION NEWS
------------------------------------------------------------

🇵🇹 Portugal: Prime Minister Antonio Costa resigned last week after Portuguese authorities announced a corruption probe ([link removed]) involving concessions for lithium mining and hydrogen production. Portugal’s lithium deposits are considered a key asset in the European Union’s push for greater control over raw materials.

🇺🇸 United States: The mayor of New York City is being investigated for allegedly accepting illegal campaign contributions ([link removed]) from Turkish groups aligned with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.


** GLOBAL CRIME NEWS
------------------------------------------------------------

🇷🇸 Serbia: Prosecutors charged 20 people ([link removed]) described as leaders and members of the so-called Balkan cartel. The list of accused includes Zoran Jakšić, a leading member of Group America, a global criminal syndicate exposed in a 2020 OCCRP investigation ([link removed]) .

🇦🇷 Argentina: Fossils from the largest cultural property theft in Argentina's history ([link removed]) have returned home. Argentina received more than 6,400 specimens, including the world's oldest daisy flower fossil, which were smuggled into Spain in 2020.
P.S. Thank you for reading the OCCRP newsletter. Feel free to reply with any feedback.

============================================================
Copyright © 2023 Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, All rights reserved.
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project
Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can ** update your preferences ([link removed])
or ** unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])
.