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Greetings From Amsterdam,
In this edition of OCCRP Weekly, we report on ATMs that authorities say are almost exclusively used for criminal activity, doctored Facebook posts used to jail an activist, and the latest media outlet outlawed by the Kremlin.
But first, we wanted to share some troubling news about our Romanian member center, the RISE Project.
Romanian prosecutors have demanded that journalists hand over documents and other information used in their recent investigation, the Migrant Affair, which uncovered a criminal network trafficking migrants into Europe to work for major companies. At least one of the alleged conspirators is related to a powerful public official.
RISE is still trying to understand the legal justification for this subpoena and whether it violates EU laws that protect journalists from being forced to disclose confidential sources.
Follow OCCRP Weekly for updates on this situation. You can read the Migrant Affair series here in Romanian. (Google Translate does an adequate job translating the story into English).
Now, here’s the latest in global crime and corruption.
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How Crypto ATMs in the U.S. Became a Favorite Tool for Scammers
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There’s an increasingly common scam in the United States that follows a timeless formula. It starts with an email or a phone call to an elderly citizen with promises of financial windfall or false threats of money owed. It ends with the victim sending thousands of dollars to far flung jurisdictions that will likely never be reclaimed.
This week’s main story is about crypto ATMs, which allow people to exchange cash for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. There are over 31,000 of these machines in the U.S., but law enforcement agencies say they have almost no legitimate uses.
Instead, the ATMs have become increasingly common vehicles for scams that bilked elderly and vulnerable Americans out of $120 million in 2023 alone.
Here’s how they work: Fraudsters persuade their targets to deposit cash into the ATMs, tell them how to convert their money to cryptocurrency, and then convince them to send the crypto to the scammers’ wallets, which are often connected to overseas exchanges. Who owns the wallets and what happens to the cash when it hits an exchange is often impossible to discover.
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Broader Criminality: Individual cases of fraud can be hard to prosecute. But a handful of major convictions in U.S. courts indicate the potential scale of crypto ATMs’ role in larger criminal enterprises, including those that finance terrorism.
The most prominent was the case of Victoria Jacobs, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison in April for funneling $18,000 to a tactical training group that supports Syria’s Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, designated as a foreign terror group by the U.S. State Department. She used a crypto ATM in the heart of New York City as part of the scheme.
>> Read the full story
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Kyrgyz Activist Jailed for Facebook Posts Says She Was Framed
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Prominent Kyrgyz activist Kanykei Aranova has been sentenced to prison for a series of Facebook posts that authorities said “incited hatred.” But she says the Facebook profile was fake, and that she never wrote any of the messages.
The case against Aranova was primarily based on posts from a Facebook account that has since been taken offline. Before it disappeared, journalists with OCCRP and Temirov Live saved screenshots showing that the profile was previously under the name “Adina Juma.”
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Facebook did not respond to questions from reporters about the profile with Aranova’s name, which contained edited posts that were used to convict her.
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At some point, the Facebook profile changed to show Aranova’s name. Then, on January 13, a number of existing posts were edited in ways that authorities could interpret as incriminating.
🌐 The Big Picture: Kyrgyzstan was once considered the freest and most democratic country in Central Asia. That all changed once Sadyr Japarov became president in 2021. That year, Reporters Without Borders ranked Kyrgyzstan 79th out of 180 countries on its World Press Freedom Index. In 2023, the group ranked the country 122th.
The verdict against Aranova is just one example of this backslide towards autocracy. Colleagues of OCCRP have also been targeted as part of Japarov’s crackdown. Earlier this year, 11 journalists affiliated with Temirov Live, a media partner of OCCRP, were arrested on similar charges as Aranova.
>> Read the full story
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Russia: Last week, the Russian government classified Moscow Times as an “undesirable organization,” a distinction the OCCRP network is very familiar with.
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Quick History of the Moscow Times: The publication started in the early 1990s as an English-language newspaper that was popular among expats who moved to Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since then, it has evolved into a digital-only outlet that publishes in both English and Russian, though the Kremlin blocked the Russian site shortly after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Around that time, Moscow Times journalists also relocated to Netherlands.
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The “undesirable” label effectively criminalizes any association with the organization or its employees. This means that Russians could be prosecuted if they were caught speaking with Moscow Times journalists, sharing their articles, or donating to support their work.
Moscow designated both OCCRP and our member center IStories as “undesirable” in late 2021. Despite the obstacles this posed, we have still been able to reach sources, collect sensitive documents, and publish major investigations about the Russian war machine.
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United States: The Office of Inspector General in Chicago has requested that city officials reopen their probe into police officers who were previously accused of having links to the Oath Keepers, an extremist, anti-government group that was involved in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The Bureau of Internal Affairs launched its investigation into the Oath Keepers after OCCRP and the Sun-Times found the names of several current and former Chicago officers on a membership list of the group. You can read our 2023 investigation here. The agency has refused to reopen the case per the inspector general's request, saying it found no evidence that the officers had participated in the Oath Keepers beyond signing up as members.
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United States: Senator Bob Menendez has been convicted on 16 corruption charges, including bribery and acting as an unregistered foreign agent on behalf of Egypt. The New Jersey member of congress chaired the Senate foreign relations committee until he was charged in September 2023. Several senior Democrats have now demanded that Menendez resign altogether in light of the verdict.
South Africa: Julius Malema, the leader of the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters party, faces new corruption allegations after a former bank executive testified that he gave the firebrand politician bribe money as early as 2017. The claims made in the affidavit pertain to graft accusations that first emerged six years ago. Malema has denied wrongdoing.
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Global Crypto Report: Since 2019, $100 billion has flowed between “known illicit crypto wallets'' and services that obscure the origins of digital assets or convert them into fiat currency, according to a new report from the blockchain research firm Chainalysis.
United States: Three leaders of Lev Tahor, an extremist Jewish sect, were given lengthy prison sentences for their roles in kidnapping and sex trafficking two children out of the country. Prosecutors said the defendants planned on bringing the children to a compound in Guatemala, where one of the kidnapped children, a 14-year-old girl, would be united with her adult husband.
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P.S. Thank you for reading the OCCRP newsletter. Feel free to reply with any feedback.
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