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Greetings From Amsterdam,
OCCRP Weekly is back from its winter hiatus — and we’ve got plenty to share.
In this edition we’ll explore the breakdown of plans to build a much-needed water plant in the heart of Solomon Islands after funders turned a blind eye to concerns about the bidding process. We’ll also unpack findings from a series of uncovered documents: How a sanctioned Russian firm sold a multi-billion-dollar air defense system to Saudi Arabia; the $15 million that disgraced health care giant Steward spent to avoid the public airing of a controversial deal in Malta; and an intelligence effort in Syria to spy on journalists.
Let’s dive into all that, and more.
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How Solomon Islands’ Donor-Funded Water Plant Became a Costly Failure
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When torrential rains flooded the capital of Solomon Islands and overwhelmed its water treatment system a decade ago, over a dozen people were killed and thousands contracted water-borne diseases. State-owned Solomon Water developed a plan to distribute 15 million liters of clean water daily in the capital, Honiara, and beyond, and secured the $20 million in loans and grants in the years that followed to build the Kongulai Water Plant, which was set to be completed in 2023.
But today, flooding still regularly causes Solomon Water to shut down water service to most of the city, and waterborne illness still accompanies seasonal rains. The water plant is far from functional.
That’s because the project was awarded to an Indian joint venture with a track record of non-performance, according to an investigation by OCCRP and its media partner In-depth Solomons. Tens of thousands of leaked emails and documents, as well as interviews with those involved, reveal how the project unraveled:
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The duo of Indian contractors, Rean Watertech and P.C. Snehal LTD, was at least four years behind on four separate water treatment systems in India when it submitted a bid $4 million short of Solomon Water’s own project estimate in late 2021. It was asking $15.6 million to build the plant. The next bid on the project, funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), was nearly $5 million more.
Solomon Water repeatedly raised alarms to ADB over the venture’s understanding of the actual work to be done, its ability to meet timelines, and whether the proposal would cover necessary equipment and material costs. But ADB dismissed those concerns. Three officials involved in the project reported pressure to “take the cheapest bid” — and so they did.
By August 2022, three months into the project, the water utility told its board that Rean/PCS had already been notified of three breaches of contract, including failure to secure the necessary insurance for the project. It was deemed “impossible” to meet the June 2023 deadline. By the following May, it issued a stop work order. One of the venture’s two companies had dropped out of the deal without notice, Solomon Water learned. Not a drop of concrete had been poured.
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But it wasn’t Rean/PCS that then came under fire. In the months that followed, the government minister overseeing the project placed Solomon Water under his control and sacked its board. Meanwhile, reporting indicates that what little work has been completed on the project — some estimates indicate as little as 5 percent — was done largely by the minister’s son, without declaration to Parliament. (It's unclear how much, if any, he was paid.)
What’s more, some say accepting bids despite concerns is a common thread in development projects throughout the Pacific.
“There is a tendency amongst all aid donors — the ADB included — not to listen sufficiently to stakeholders when working in the Pacific. At its worst, failures of this sort can mean lives lost — the lives of people that would have been saved if the project had worked,” said Terence Wood, a fellow at the Australian National University’s Development Policy Center.
Read the full story 
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Sanctioned Russian Firms Sold $2B Air Defense System to Saudi Arabia, Leaked Documents Show
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Saudi Arabia was recently in the market for an air defense system that could shoot down missiles, planes and drones. It turned to Russia, agreeing to pay roughly $2.3 billion to a subsidiary of a Russian state-owned defense conglomerate.
In exchange, Saudi Arabia would receive 39 trucks capable of shooting down aircraft, 10 vehicles capable of directing combat vehicle operations, hundreds of missiles, additional vehicles, and radio communication systems. That’s according to leaked documents from Roselectronics, a subsidiary of the conglomerate Rostec, reviewed by OCCRP and the Kyiv Independent.
The contract was signed on April 8, 2021. Less than a year later, Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But the contract covered almost five years — meaning the agreement likely carried on.
Why does that matter? Some of the Russian companies involved in the deal were sanctioned by the European Union, U.S. and other countries. Saudi Arabia hasn’t broken any laws by cooperating with the Russian defense companies, but experts say individuals and entities there could face repercussions from the U.S. for continuing to engage with them.
Arms sales are important both to Russia’s struggling economy and in its effort to grow diplomatic influence. Working papers and presentations in the leak indicate three other possible contracts with Saudi Arabia. Documents also indicate that Russia may have been provided access to the Patriot air defense system Saudi Arabia acquired from the U.S. through the arrangement.
Additional records in the leak show that China, India, Algeria, and Egypt have continued to purchase arms from Russia since the start of the war on Ukraine.
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Philippines Could Pursue Money Stashed in Cyprus By Alleged Crime Boss
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Since Philippine police freed 875 people from a compound in the town of Bambam north of Manila in early 2024 where they were forced to defraud lonely victims with “love scam” scripts, authorities have pursued the scheme’s alleged boss, Huang Zhiyang. They’ve charged him with human trafficking, sued him for alleged money laundering, and frozen at least five bank accounts linked to him in the Philippines. Meanwhile, Huang has fled the country and his whereabouts are unknown.
Reporting now reveals Huang has access to another 2 million euros in Cyprus, where he invested in a real estate development company to qualify for a Cypriot passport through a now-defunct citizenship program. He was not a suspect when he received his Cyprus citizenship. While the company holding the funds for him has alerted Cyprus’ anti-money laundering authority of the charges against Huang, no restrictions have been applied to the funds.
Philippine officials say their priority is finding and arresting Huang, who — according to intelligence reports — escaped last year’s raid using the helicopter of his business partner, former Bambam Mayor Alice Guo. Members of the country’s Anti Money Laundering Council, meanwhile, are mulling whether to have the funds frozen.
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Before Bankruptcy, U.S. Healthcare Giant Steward Agreed to Pay 15 Million Euros to Avoid Public Criticism in Malta
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After disgraced U.S. hospital provider Steward Health Care took over three public hospitals in Malta from Vitals Global Healthcare (VGH) in 2018, it spent a year engaged in heated exchanges and legal threats. VGH Executive Sri Ram Tumuluri was threatening to sue Steward in the U.S., U.K., and Malta over alleged wrongdoing to reach the deal, which he said was intended to push him out. The health giant, for its part, had begun circulating a three-page dossier of allegations against Tumuluri: It accused him of involvement in suspicious contracts, improper payments and diverted funds. It also alleged VGH had hidden liabilities ahead of the takeover, and costs to Steward of at least 50 million euros.
To put the issue to rest, Steward signed a settlement in February 2018 with Tumuluri and another VGH executive — and agreed to shell out $15 million euros to the two, according to a newly uncovered copy of the deal and internal emails. The agreement included keeping all allegations of wrongdoing confidential to avoid litigation for all parties. The funds were to be paid out over three years, and no party had to admit guilt.
The payout is the latest revelation in a saga of missteps by Steward. The hospital takeover deal was made void in 2023, but at that point Steward had already been paid hundreds of millions of euros by the Maltese government. It is now at the center of Malta’s biggest-ever corruption scandal, with former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat among dozens of officials charged with bribery and squandering public funds. All have pleaded not guilty. Steward, meanwhile, declared bankruptcy and faces a U.S. federal grand jury investigation over alleged fraud.
Plus, explore our series on how Steward executives drained the company to enrich themselves and launched smear campaigns against critics, even as patients suffered.
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Documents Found After the Fall of Assad Show Syrian Intelligence Spying on Journalists
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After OCCRP and Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism (SIRAJ) revealed loopholes in the sanction system that allowed the Syrian army to access Swedish-made trucks, the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate (GID) made note of the findings and efforts in Sweden to review its policies.
Then, it authorized an operation to spy on SIRAJ.
That’s according to a dossier discovered at GID headquarters after the sudden collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s decades-long regime on December 8. The rebel coalition that took over the country allowed journalists and researchers access to mountains of paperwork left behind in government offices.
The memo, found by a Syrian investigative journalist who visited the GID headquarters on December 20, reveals the intelligence agency’s take on SIRAJ, a collective of journalists who have exposed corruption and abuse by the Assad regime since 2019. Pointing to basic journalism practices like interviewing sources and reviewing documents as examples of undercover intelligence work, it dubs the platform “a front for espionage activities.”
The memo reflects the regime’s paranoid view of journalists. At least 181 media professionals were killed and hundreds abducted by the Assad regime from when Syrian protesters flooded streets as part of the “Arab Spring” of 2011 demanding democratic reform across the region until the regime’s fall, according to Reporters Sans Frontiers.
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“Nobody is Safe:” Kenya’s Abduction Epidemic
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In Kenya, calls for justice are growing — but so is the country’s abduction problem. Since anti-government protests began in June, at least 82 people have been kidnapped. They include political activists leading the Free Kenya Movement, a Tanzanian journalist, the son of Kenya’s former Attorney General, and three people who circulated an AI-generated image of Kenyan President William Ruto in a coffin.
Some have been found dead, many released and 29 are still missing. Many Kenyans believe the number of abductees is much higher than reported, and new cases have continued into the new year.
Kenyan police have assured the public that most cases reported to them “have been successfully investigated and are now pending before court.” But not everyone is satisfied. Earlier this month, 25 Kenyan legislators called for the creation of an independent commission to look into abductions. The country’s high court has called Kenya’s top policeman to appear Monday for questioning — or be charged with contempt. And some 50,000 Kenyans have signed a petition submitted to the International Criminal Court accusing Ruto of committing crimes against humanity, including the abductions.
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113K and Climbing: OCCRP’s focus on video to connect our reporting with a broader audience is paying off. Driven by videos such as “The Chilling Story of Serbia’s Human Slaughterhouse” and “The Turkish Gang War on Our Streets,” OCCRP was given a Silver Creator Award from YouTube for achieving more than 100,000 subscribers. (By some estimates, there are over 100 million YouTube channels worldwide and fewer than 0.6 percent of them have 100,000 subscribers.)
In Case You Missed It: Last month, we named ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad our 13th annual “Person of the Year” in organized crime and corruption. The dubious honor was bestowed in light of his brutal authoritarian regime of centralized control, suppression of dissent, and reliance on a powerful security apparatus — much of which was funded through the production of the drug Captagon, cigarette smuggling, antiquities theft, arms trading and more.
Assad was chosen by an expert panel of judges across civil society, academia, and journalism. They also awarded the first ever “Lifetime Non-Achievement Award” to Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, one of the longest serving dictators in the world. Since leading a coup in 1979 to seize power from his uncle, Obiang has mercilessly repressed dissent with arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances, and torture, while stealing much of the country’s wealth together with other members of its ruling elite.
A huge thanks to our OCCRP Accomplices for their generosity in donating to the “Don’t Let Them Kill the Story” campaign. These funds are already helping us safeguard the work of hundreds of journalists and over 70 media outlets worldwide. Your support ensures we can continue investigating organized crime and corruption, even in the most dangerous environments. Thank you for standing with us.
For those who haven’t yet contributed or want to learn more about the risks journalists face, visit occrp.org/protectjournalists. Together, we can defend journalists and the stories they seek to share.
Want to work with us? We post open positions here. We are looking for candidates who are passionate about the work we do and who want to advance our mission and impact around the world. Current open positions include daily news intern, and JIRA-related contractor.
More from us next week.
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P.S. Thanks for reading OCCRP Weekly. Feel free to reply to this email with feedback, thoughts, or questions.
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