Also, our reporting on disgraced Lebanese Central Banker Riad Salame may have led to big impact in Switzerland :)

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NEW INVESTIGATION
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** 🇫🇯 Chinese Communist Party-Backed Businessman in Fiji is a Top Australian Criminal Target
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💁 Background: The Pacific region has become a key staging ground in the rivalry between China and the West. And the battle for influence isn’t only carried out by state actors.

Often, Beijing will use prominent members of the diaspora to push Chinese interests overseas, under a strategy it calls the “United Front.” In Fiji, China-born businessman Zhao Fugang is openly part of this soft power operation. Zhao has held leading positions for groups that are part of the Chinese Communist Party, and even headed a Fiji-based organization that advocates for the “reunification” of Taiwan with China.

💥 The Revelation: But aside from his political work, OCCRP and partners have obtained documents showing that Australian officials have accused Zhao of being a senior organized crime figure — and they want Fiji to move against him.

The Accusations Against Zhao: Australian authorities claim he’s a senior member of a syndicate involved in drug smuggling, money laundering, and human trafficking. There is no record of Zhao ever being charged in Australia or elsewhere and he denies any wrongdoing.

😤 Australia Appears Determined: While Australian authorities have not publicized any evidence against Zhao, documents obtained by reporters indicate they’re serious about targeting him.

Australia’s top criminal intelligence body even took the extraordinary step of adding Zhao to its registry of Australian Priority Organization Targets in mid-2023. The list of priority targets is secret, and includes about a dozen top suspected criminals ([link removed]) , typically based abroad, who are deemed to be “the most significant threats facing Australia.”

💊 Drug Smuggling Via Fiji: Australia’s suspicions about Zhao’s alleged criminal connections also come amid mounting concern over a rise in drug trafficking through Fiji, which sits between Latin America and deep-pocketed buyers in Australia and New Zealand. A Fijian narco route was investigated by OCCRP last year ([link removed]) .

🏛 The State-Mob Connection: Experts say that China has a track record in using “patriotic” organized crime figures as proxies abroad.

“If you can find people that are successful business people and involved in criminal activities, then they’re often your most effective vectors in-country, because they know people and they’re willing to do the stuff that the state doesn’t want to do.” — Graeme Smith, the Australian National University.

If the accusations against Zhao are true, it would not be the first time Beijing has relied on organized crime figures to advance its interests in the Pacific. In 2022, we revealed the ties between the Chinese government and a notorious triad leader in Palau ([link removed]) .

🤔 Our Data and Sources: This investigation is primarily based on documents that circulated among law enforcement agencies and interviews with Australian, U.S., and Fijian security officials.

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


** FOLLOW UP FROM OCCRP'S REPORTING
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🇨🇭 Switzerland: Rumors swirled for years that Riad Salame secretly held an overseas fortune during his three decade reign as chief of Lebanon’s central bank.

In 2020, OCCRP and our Lebanese member center Daraj substantiated these rumors in an explosive investigation ([link removed]) that revealed that Salame controlled offshore companies that made nearly $100 million in foreign investments.

Since then, Salame has been charged with illicit enrichment in Lebanon, and sanctioned by multiple countries, including the United States. He’s also been investigated by prosecutors in several European countries, including Switzerland, where Salame’s family was accused of stashing stolen funds.

This week a Swiss probe into a local subsidiary of the Lebanese financial group Bank Audi – which reportedly began after reports surfaced about its relationship with Salame – found the bank committed serious money laundering violations ([link removed]) by making millions of francs in unexplained payments to politically exposed persons.

🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea: Authorities in Papua New Guinea are investigating ([link removed]) how a China-born businesswoman accused of organizing a flight of 71 kilograms of methamphetamines to Australia was able to obtain PNG citizenship. The probe comes after an OCCRP investigation revealed ([link removed]) that she appeared to have falsified key parts of her citizenship application.

🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan: A Kyrgyz court ordered the detention of Raimbek Matraimov ([link removed]) , the corrupt former customs official at the center of multiple award-winning OCCRP investigations.

Matraimov was recently extradited from Azerbaijan, where he fled to after Kyrgyz authorities placed him on a wanted list under the vague allegation of “assisting to restrict an individual’s freedom of movement by forcible detention.” Kyrgyz authorities provided no details at the time about the alleged incident.

Not Familiar with ‘Raim Million?’ In 2019 ([link removed]) , OCCRP and partners revealed how Matraimov enabled and profited from a smuggling empire. Then in the following year, we uncovered that he retain enormous influence over politics and customs in this investigative series ([link removed]) .
Did you know you can strengthen democracy, freedom of expression, access to quality information, and the rule of law in a single donation?

Join our Newsroom. Invest in Investigative Journalism.
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** THE OCCRP NETWORK
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🇳🇬 Premium Times: Our Nigerian member center broke a global news story this week ([link removed]) when it reported that an executive of Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, had escaped custody in Nigeria, where authorities have accused the platform of facilitating money laundering.

Binance in Nigeria: Skyrocketing inflation and other economic woes turned Nigeria into Africa’s largest market for crypto trading. However, Binance ceased all trading in the Nigerian naira earlier this month in light of the country’s criminal investigation.

🇷🇺 IStories: Our Russian member center spoke with experts with differing views ([link removed]) about whether Vladimir Putin’s regime is guided by an underlying political ideology. One argues the current government is driven by a belief that Russia has a special civilization that’s indispensable for the region and must be preserved at all costs. Another believes the modern state is only upheld by the self-serving interests of a kleptocracy.

🇷🇴 Context: Our Romanian member center is facing a baseless lawsuit filed by a businessman at the center of one of their investigations. In 2023, Context reported ([link removed]) about a company that had not begun construction on a golf course project despite receiving 2 million euros in investments from the Romanian government and European Union.

The firm’s owner, Jurgen Faff, is now suing our member center ([link removed]) in what appears to be yet another “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” or SLAPP, against the OCCRP network. (We’re currently facing over 70 of these vexatious lawsuits).

Do You Also Have a SLAPP Problem? In 2023, OCCRP helped create Reporters Shield, an organization that offers a one-of-a-kind membership program to protect media outlets from bogus defamation lawsuits. Apply to join here ([link removed]) .


** CORRUPTION NEWS
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🇺🇸 United States: Political candidates in the United States and their campaign staff are barred from coordinating with political action committees (PACs), which can legally spend unlimited amounts of money in support of any political cause or candidate. Many candidates get around this rule by simply publishing messages on their website that they want PACs to amplify. The tactic is known as “redboxing,” since the campaigns often put the information in prominent red boxes.

A new study published in the Election Law Journal ([link removed]) shows that the practice may be far more effective than previously thought. Researchers found that campaigns that employed redboxing benefitted from PAC advertisements and other spending that was hundreds of times greater than candidates who didn’t.

🇨🇳 China: The former leader of China's football association, Chen Xuyuan, was sentenced to life in prison for allegedly accepting $11+ million in bribes ([link removed]) . China’s professional football leagues have failed to garner significant international talent or attention, which many have blamed on poor financial planning and corruption.

Confession Theater: Chen confessed to accepting bribes in a state TV documentary series that aired in January. He’s not the first one to do so — the concept has been used by national media for years ([link removed]) as part of President Xi Jinping’s seemingly never-ending anti-graft crusade.

🇻🇳 Vietnam: After less than a year in office, President Võ Văn Thưởng resigned last week in a move that insiders say is a response to the government’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign ([link removed]) , which has targeted several other Communist party leaders.

The Communist Party, which is led by someone more powerful than the president, did not offer details about the resignation, thoughthe BBC reports ([link removed]) that it may be related to fraud and bribery allegations from over a decade ago.
P.S. Thank you for reading the OCCRP newsletter. Feel free to reply with any feedback.

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