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Greetings From Amsterdam,
This Sunday, Moldovans will cast two historic votes: one for their next president, and another on whether joining the European Union should be enshrined as a goal in their constitution. But a young nonprofit and its fugitive backer have been working hard to sow anti-Western sentiment ahead of the ballots — and have even paid Moldovans to vote against the EU.
In this edition of OCCRP Weekly, we’re diving into the inner workings of the referendum interference scheme. We’ll also take a look at our recent story on the dozens of Venezuelan teenagers who remain behind bars in harrowing conditions after protests against Nicolás Maduro, see how FC Barcelona nearly wired 1 million euros to the wrong person, and more.
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A Russian Nonprofit Interferes in Moldova’s EU Referendum — And Builds an Anti-Western Influence Machine
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Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moldova has swung between pro-Russian and pro-Western governments. This Sunday, October 20, its citizens will make the pivotal choice of whether the country should try to join the European Union.
But Moldovan police and prosecutors say they have had to work tirelessly in the lead-up to the referendum to combat pro-Russian interference schemes — and blatant efforts to buy Moldovans’ votes.
Evrazia, a Russian nonprofit founded six months ago, is one of the leading culprits, authorities say. It has been on a zealous, and at times illicit, campaign to promote the Eurasian Economic Union as a pro-Moscow alternative to the EU. Evrazia insists that Russia’s neighbors should identify as “Eurasian” — not European. Moldovan authorities say the organization is backed by Ilan Shor, a fugitive Moldovan oligarch who faces a prison sentence for the alleged theft of $1 billion — about a tenth of the country’s GDP — from Moldova’s banks in 2014.
Reporters from OCCRP’s Moldovan partner newsroom, CU SENS, dug into Evrazia’s activities. In its short existence, here are some of the organization’s accomplishments:
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Evrazia has sponsored hundreds of young Moldovans to visit Moscow — and then record sun-lit videos about how the experience fulfilled their dreams, using the hashtag #GettoKnowRussia2024.
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The organization has sent “humanitarian assistance” to tens of thousands of pensioners. One woman lauded Evrazia for helping her pay for firewood.
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It has funded at least 73 grants of up to $31,000 to support activists with proposals on how to build “friendly relations between the people of the post-Soviet countries” — at least 10 of these funded Moldovan projects, including a tourist website, a film festival, and a women’s sports and education initiative.
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Evrazia has promised $250 million for unspecified Moldovan infrastructure projects.
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Earlier this month, Moldovan police and prosecutors announced that the organization also funneled $15 million through a sanctioned Russian bank to some 130,000 Moldovan citizens to buy “no” votes in the Sunday referendum on joining the EU. That allegedly included monthly payments of $50 for supporters of the “no” campaign and $2,500 for leaders who encourage others to snub the EU.
Shor has bragged on Telegram, where the vote-buying payments were organized, that authorities have dramatically underestimated the scale at which Evrazia is pumping money into Moldova: “You’re counting like preschoolers,” he taunted. But he insists the organization’s work is above board. It’s not buying votes, he claims, but hiring people to explain the economic benefits of the Eurasian Economic Union over the European Union.
Telegram has blocked channels belonging to Shor, Evrazia, and a handful of related Moldovan politicians for what it said are violations of local laws. Authorities, meanwhile, say they can’t keep up with the sheer scale of Shor’s efforts, despite repeated raids, arrests, and confiscations.
While Shor’s exact relationship to Evrazia is unclear, both the nonprofit and financial services companies Shor has recently founded have direct ties to the Kremlin. Reporters at RISE Moldova found that they’re intended to allow international transactions that evade Western sanctions.
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Digging Into Ilan Shor
OCCRP’s network of partner newsrooms has been keeping a close eye on Shor and his work ahead of the October 20 referendum vote.
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Our Moldovan partner, CU SENS, brought the issue to our attention and released a 40-minute documentary on Evrazia’s anti-Western efforts.
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Member centers RISE Moldova and Ziarul de Gardă recently published investigations on the same topic.
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Ziarul de Gardă reporters also spent three months undercover, documenting how Shor recruits people to work for him, lures them to Moscow, circulates money, and is backing a candidate to be announced just one day before the elections.
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While Shor denies any improper Russian ties, his work and that of Evrazia fit neatly into the Kremlin’s strategy for influencing Moldova in the decade ahead, as OCCRP partner VSquare exposed last year, using a cache of secret Russian documents from 2021.
CU SENS reporter Olga Ceaglei said it is crucial to pursue this line of reporting, as it shines a light on Russian efforts to undermine Moldovan autonomy — which could be replicated in other countries like Romania.
“If in Ukraine they used tanks, in Moldova they used Ilan Shor and Evrazia,” Caeglei said. “It’s complicated, massive, and it’s a war – an information war.”
“These types of stories are really important to inform Moldovans that we have this mastermind of corruption,” she said. “I believe investigative journalists can make a difference in a society like Moldova.”
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Tears and Torture: Venezuela’s Teens Face Brutal Justice for Protesting Rigged Election
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Dozens of Venezuelan teenagers were rounded up and jailed in the aftermath of this summer’s protests against Nicolás Maduro’s re-election — a vote most of the world viewed as rigged. While 86 were released after a short detention, another 50 have had hearings in recent weeks in which they’ve been given bleak options: plead guilty to terrorism and incitement and face six years in prison, or stand trial and risk a decade behind bars.
Judges have failed to review files advocating for the teenagers’ innocence, and the youths have been denied the right to private lawyers.
Already, they have been beaten, tortured, and deprived of food and medicine during their detention, family members and human rights groups say. Some have attempted to take their own lives. The Organization of American States has equated their detention to “the kidnapping and torture of minors.”
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FC Barcelona Almost Scores Own Goal in Lewandowski Transfer Scam
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After European football agent Pinhas “Pini” Zahavi landed a $46 million signing deal in July 2022 between FC Barcelona and his client, Polish superstar Robert Lewandowski, Zahavi called it “one of the most difficult transfers of my career.”
Ten days later, FC Barcelona attempted to fulfill another transfer, this time for 1 million euros. The money was an initial installment for Zahavi — or so an email request purported. But the request came from a different address than the agent had previously used, included no invoice, and asked that the money be sent to an account in Cyprus under another man’s name. It was bankers in Cyprus, rather than FC Barcelona, who blocked the payment attempt.
Reporters at OCCRP and partners Cadena Ser, Der Standard, and Paper Trail Media investigated the attempted fraud and what it means for the $600 billion professional football industry.
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Alleged Hong Kong Crypto Swindler Tied to Singapore Money Laundering Syndicate
Chinese national Su Weiyi is battling charges of theft in Hong Kong for allegedly stealing millions from investors after the collapse of the cryptocurrency platform Atom Asset Exchange (AAX). But corporate records also reveal he has a handful of business partners linked to illicit activities — money laundering, online scams, and human trafficking.
While Su Weiyi has not been publicly linked by police to any online scam or money laundering schemes, organized crime experts say overlapping relationships between people and companies involved in both legitimate and illicit businesses are increasingly common in Southeast Asia. The connections also raise questions about whether illicit funds may have entered the AAX crypto platform.
Brazilian Municipal Candidates Accused of Modern Slavery
Four candidates in Brazil’s recent municipal elections — including two who won seats — have been found by Brazil’s Ministry of Labor and Employment to have subjected employees to “slavery-like” conditions. The label includes forced labor, extreme work hours, degrading conditions, extensive surveillance, confiscation of documents, or restrictions on transportation.
The updated list was released the day after two elected officials, Eduardo Ribeiro Lima of Beberibe in the northeastern state of Ceará and Fabiano Francisco da Silva of Vera Mendes in the neighboring Piauí state, were re-elected to public office. They were among 727 people named on the ministry’s “Dirty List,” over allegations regarding conditions on a cashew plant and in a mining business, respectively. Two additional candidates made the list, but failed to win office.
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OCCRP Events and Recognition
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Join us next week in Madrid, as OCCRP gathers with journalists from over 15 countries for The Latin American Conference on Investigative Journalism, October 23-26. Panels will cover a range of topics including dictatorship-business links, reporting in exile, and judicial harassment of journalists. OCCRP team members and partners will be presenting on key investigations, including The Dictator’s Bank and our investigation uncovering how the global drug trade is carried out via fishing boats and cargo ships. Plus, OCCRP Africa Editor Beauregard Tromp will discuss investigative threads that reach across Africa and Latin America.
Last week, OCCRP partner The Kyiv Independent was honored with the Best Film award at the Press Play Prague International Film Festival for its documentary “He Came Back.” The investigative film uncovers sexual crimes committed during the Russian occupation of Kyiv and Kherson oblasts in early 2022. Read OCCRP’s companion article here.
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P.S. Thanks for reading the OCCRP newsletter. Feel free to reply to this email with feedback, thoughts, or questions.
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