Also, our Venezuelan colleagues made a documentary with PBS Frontline about a government nutrition program during the country’s economic crisis.
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OCCRP REPORTING
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** 🇦🇹 Austrian Mystery Villas Owned by Former Romantic Partner of Sanctioned Russian Oligarch Eduard Khudainatov
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Four villas in an upscale Austrian ski town were purchased by a mysterious Russian woman named Svetlana Eliseeva between 2017 and 2021, paying a total of around 26 million euros, property records show.
Eliseeva, we reveal, is a longtime romantic partner of Eduard Khudainatov, a Russian oil boss who was sanctioned by the European Union in June 2022.
Who is Eduard Khudainatov? He headed the state-controlled Rosneft, one of the world’s largest oil producers, from 2010 to 2012. After finally leaving Rosneft in 2013, Khudainatov built up his private oil business, part of which he then sold to Rosneft for $9.6 billion. Forbes estimated his personal wealth in 2022 to be at least $2 billion.
🤔 Our Data and Sources: This story is primarily based on Austrian property records and leaked emails and application materials for a golden passport.
>> Read the full story ([link removed])
** 🇪🇬 A Tobacco Giant's Play for Egypt
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Philip Morris International (PMI) has made inroads in Egypt, one of the world’s most coveted cigarette markets, following a disputed licensing process won by a company whose full ownership details are a closely-guarded secret.
The saga centers around a firm called United Tobacco Company, which won an April 2022 tender to take over cigarette production in the country. All of the Big Tobacco companies whose products are sold in Egypt protested the award – except PMI.
Media reports at the time described United Tobacco as a PMI “subsidiary,” but the Swiss firm’s stake was only confirmed in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing in mid-2023.
In our latest investigation ([link removed]) , carried out in partnership with The Examination, we put together the most detailed picture yet of the United Tobacco deal.
Mouthwatering Privatization
Cigarette production in Egypt is big business: unlike most places in the world, smoking is on the rise in Egypt. Production used to be controlled by a state-backed firm, until United Tobacco was granted its license.
“You have … an addictive product in a country of 110 million, [so] people can imagine how insanely profitable this can be,” Osama Diab, an Egyptian development economist at Belgium’s KU Leuven, told OCCRP’s partner The Examination. “There’s almost zero risk.”
In previous investigations, OCCRP has exposed how major tobacco companies and their distributors have attempted to corner cigarette markets in West Africa and Europe through allegedly unscrupulous means. You can read more in our Loose Tobacco series. ([link removed])
>> Read the full story ([link removed])
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MORE OCCRP REPORTING
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** 🇬🇪 Georgian Opponents to “Russian Law” Face Serious Threats
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A proposed law has deeply divided Georgia, sparking mass protests as it passed through the first parliamentary hearing in mid-April. The draft legislation made it through a second hearing last week. If adopted, the bill would mandate that non-governmental organizations and independent media outlets receiving funds from abroad register as agents of foreign influence, “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” which subjects them to government scrutiny.
Now, those who openly criticized the draft — including journalists in the OCCRP network — are receiving threatening calls and finding posters on the walls in their neighborhoods displaying their faces and reading “foreign agent” underneath.
>> Read the full story ([link removed])
** PRESS FREEDOM NEWS
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🇮🇱 Israel Bans Al Jazeera: Israeli authorities raided the Jerusalem office of Al Jazeera after removing the television station from the air, accusing the Qatari media outlet of being a propaganda tool of Hamas. Several press freedom groups have criticized the ban, including an Israeli-based organization ([link removed]) that has petitioned the supreme court to overturn the decision.
Israel blocked journalists from entering Gaza after Hamas’s October 7 attack, leaving Al Jazeera as one of the only global media outlets with reporters in the strip to document the siege.
** THE OCCRP NETWORK
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🇻🇪 Armando.Info: Our Venezuelan member center made a documentary with PBS Frontline about a government nutrition program during the country’s economic crisis. Reporters found that the program bought shoddy food products, including powdered milk that was so low in calcium and high in sodium that a researcher questioned whether it could be classified as milk at all. The 90-minute documentary will premiere ([link removed]) on PBS and on YouTube on May 14.
Venezuelan Government Retaliates: After Armando.Info announced the documentary’s premiere, a Venezuelan official claimed without evidence that the reporters are involved in a corruption scheme themselves. You can read Armando.Info’s response to this baseless accusation here ([link removed]) . (The statement is in Spanish).
🇺🇦 Kyiv Independent: Our Ukrainian member center reports on how a merger between two construction companies ([link removed]) operating in the country could result in higher cement prices, potentially hindering national ambitions to rebuild infrastructure destroyed by Russian forces.
🇬🇪 iFact: Our Georgian member center continues to report on the ruling political party’s push to pass the so-called “foreign agent” law, which would enact onerous reporting requirements on media outlets and NGOs that receive funding from abroad.
This week, iFact published a story ([link removed]) about hundreds of public officials who have dutifully shared social media posts supporting the law, which resembles Russian legislation used to stifle independent media.
** CORRUPTION NEWS
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🟡 The Crypto Lobby: Cryptocurrency companies are taking full advantage of Citizens United, a 2010 Supreme Court decision in the United States that allowed private entities to spend unlimited amounts of money in support of political causes and candidates.
How it Works: Corporations and other private entities can give unlimited sums in support of political causes and candidates as long as they do not directly coordinate with a politician or their campaign staff.
These unlimited contributions are given to entities often known as Super PACs.
A report from Public Citizen ([link removed]) found that Super PACs backed by cryptocurrency companies have raised more than $102 million, the third-most of any other sector engaged in the 2024 election.
The cryptocurrency industry has a lot at stake in the United States. Nineteen U.S. senators have co-sponsoreda law proposed by Senator Elizabeth Warren ([link removed]) that would impose stronger regulations on digital asset trading. In addition, there are several crypto companies and executives who are under investigation and/or indictment over money laundering allegations in the country. In fact, four of the eight corporate crypto donors highlighted in the Public Citizen report have settled or are facing charges in the U.S. for alleged violations of securities laws.
🇫🇯 Fiji’s Former Leader Convicted: Long-serving former Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, who led the country for over 15 years until 2022, was found guilty of abusing his power ([link removed]) to shut down a corruption probe at a local university. He was sentenced to a year in prison.
OCCRP Reporting on Bainimarama: Earlier this year, we published an investigation ([link removed]) into the Bainimarama government’s suspected ties with a businessman who has acted as a proxy for Beijing’s interests.
** OCCRP HAS IMPACT
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Report on 'Enablers': Some of our biggest investigations have exposed the lawyers, accountants, bankers, and other unscrupulous professionals who specialize in helping kleptocrats hide their wealth.
The Royal United Services Institute, a U.K. think tank, analyzed several of our investigations into these enablers of corruption and published this report, Disabling the Enablers of Sanction Circumvention ([link removed]) , which lays out 12 recommendations for policymakers to help sanctions achieve their desired results
** EVENT
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Truth Tellers, the Harry Evans Investigative Journalism Summit: OCCRP Co-Founder Paul Radu will discuss the intersection of organized crime and politics at this London conference on May 15.
You can livestream the event here ([link removed]) .
P.S. Thank you for reading the OCCRP newsletter. Feel free to reply with any feedback.
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