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💼 ‘Only Those With Money Can Leave’: The only way out of Gaza since Israel launched its brutal assault on the coastal strip in October is through the Rafah border with Egypt.
But Egyptian security forces tightly control who gets to cross. In this story, we report that it often depends on who has the money to pay. And the price tag has skyrocketed as desperation in the enclave deepens.
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Rafah’s Gatekeepers: There are a number of travel agencies and brokers that help people cross the Rafah border for a fee. One of the more popular services is an Egyptian outfit called Hala Consulting and Tourism. The agency is owned by prominent Egyptian businessman Ibrahim Al-Organi, who heads the Tarabin tribe in the Sinai desert. He also owns several other companies, including a joint venture with the industrial conglomerate of the Egyptian defense ministry.
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While prices fluctuate wildly, OCCRP and the Cairo-based outlet Saheeh Masr media spoke with over a dozen people in Gaza to give a sense of how much it costs to flee.
➡️ For Palestinians: $4,500 to $10,000
➡️ For Egyptians: $650 to $1,200
The prices are largely out of reach for Palestinians in Gaza where the daily wage is roughly $13, according to a 2022 report from the U.S. State Department.
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Price Quotes: A reporter posing as a potential customer spoke with a Gaza-based travel agency, which appeared to be affiliated with Hala. The agent told him he would need to pay $5,000 each for his Palestinian sister and mother to leave Gaza within seven days. Another Egyptian agency told reporters it charged Palestinians $7,000, Egyptians $1,200, and other foreign passport holders $3,000 to exit.
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🏛 Signs of Corruption: Reporters were not able to determine exactly how these providers manage to arrange the crossings, which are now solely determined by Egypt. But their ability to secure fast clearance from the Egyptian security services that control the border has long spurred allegations that a system of bribes is greasing the wheels, which Egypt denies.
🦹 Signs of Organized Crime: OCCRP spoke with three Gazans who said they had been scammed by brokers and lost their cash. Another source said that people’s willingness to pay extortive prices had turned Rafah into a “black market and a place for mafias to operate.”
>> Read the full story
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🇧🇬 Bird.Bg: Our Bulgarian member center reports on allegations that Finance Minister Asen Vassilev and former Minister of Innovation Daniel Lorer bought real estate well-below the market value before reselling the properties for as much as 5x the amount. The two ministers belong to the "We Continue the Change" party, which rose to power on an anti-corruption platform.
🇷🇺 IStories: Our Russian member center reports on former prisoners who fought on the frontlines in Ukraine under the assumption they’d be paid a certain amount and have their records expunged. But in many cases, these soldiers were paid far less than expected and have been left with the same criminal records they had hoped to clear by enlisting.
🇭🇺 Atlatszo: Our Hungarian member center lists 10 investigations that were cited by members of parliament in 2023 in questions to government officials.
🇮🇱 Shromim: Our Israeli partner reports on the European Union’s latest sanctions on Hamas’ chief financier Abdelbasit Hamza, a Sudanese businessman who is tied to companies throughout the bloc, as revealed by Shromim, CNN, and ICIJ last month.
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Join the fight against corruption.
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🇾🇪 Yemeni Environmental Activist Goes to The Hague: Dr. Abdulkader Kharraz, the former chairman of Yemen’s Environment Protection Authority, has filed a lawsuit against two oil companies at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, claiming their pollution has led to serious health problems for local populations.
Both companies were mentioned in a recent OCCRP investigation into suspected environmental violations in Yemen committed by fossil fuel companies.
It is unclear whether the ICC has jurisdiction over environmental issues or even in the country of Yemen, which has not officially ratified the court’s founding statute.
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🇨🇳 China: Despite a ban on cryptocurrency and draconian restrictions on money flows leaving mainland China, citizens are increasingly turning to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as investments as the country’s stock and real estate markets plummet.
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GLOBAL CRIME AND CORRUPTION NEWS
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🇮🇶 Iraq: The Guardian reports that UN staff members in Iraq have allegedly demanded bribes from businesspeople who want contracts on postwar reconstruction projects. Those accused of soliciting kickbacks work for a United Nations Development Program initiative that has received roughly $1.5 billion in funding from member states.
🇬🇹 Guatemala: The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Guatemala’s former minister of energy Alberto Pimentel Mata for demanding bribes in exchange for access to the country’s mineral wealth. Pimental was mentioned in a 2022 OCCRP investigation into how a global nickel mining company knowingly polluted reservoirs around Lake Izabal, Guatemala’s largest body of freshwater.
🇸🇬 Singapore: Former Transport Minister Subramaniam Iswaran was charged with corruption shortly after stepping down from his post, where he was known for growing Singapore’s profile as a tourist destination, including bringing a Formula 1 event to the city-state. Iswaran’s downfall is the latest high-profile graft case to rock a country that has long boasted an image of clean governance.
🇪🇺 Europe: In this analysis, a Politico journalist details how corruption scandals throughout Europe have contributed to the rise of far-right political parties, who often use anti-establishment messaging to attract new voters.
🇺🇸 United States: The multinational software company SAP agreed to pay more than $220 million to settle bribery charges filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which found that the Germany-based firm paid bribes to officials in seven countries. In December, the U.S. government amended its anti-bribery laws to allow prosecutors to also charge foreign officials for demanding or accepting such payments.
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INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM EVENTS
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🏭 Investigating Climate Change: OCCRP journalists will join a webinar hosted by the Global Investigative Journalism Network to discuss top priorities and techniques for investigating companies and other entities that exacerbate climate change.
🗓️ Tuesday, February 6, 2024
⏰ 3:00 PM CET
>> Register here
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P.S. Thank you for reading the OCCRP newsletter. Feel free to reply with any feedback.
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