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July 11, 2025
Hello John,
This week we reveal the Soviet origins of a Trump adviser who has been skirting questions about his birthplace, plus take you on a trip inside a Paraguayan forest where narco-traffickers are building secret airstrips.

Read on for the latest in global crime and corruption.


** OCCRP Exclusive
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** Born in the USSR: Trump Insider’s Soviet Roots Revealed
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Republican and Trump administration insider Sergio Gor has long been cagey about his origin story.

But OCCRP and Times of Malta put an end to the mystery this week after finding a notarized property record that revealed his birthplace: Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, which was then part of the Soviet Union.

His lawyer confirmed the detail, which was listed in the 2021 deed for a house Gor bought from his late mother’s company in the Maltese port city of Cospicua.

Gor, who has been dubbed ([link removed]) “maybe the most powerful man you’ve never heard of” by the Washington Post, was raised in Malta and attended Catholic school there before emigrating to the United States.

He became a citizen and later rose through the ranks of Republican politics, working for Senator Rand Paul, co-founding a publishing house with Donald Trump Jr., and taking up a role in January as Director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office.

Speculation over his backstory grew last month after he declined ([link removed]) to reveal his country of birth to the New York Post, other than to say it was not Russia.

Read the full story → ([link removed])


** Eyes On Paraguay
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** Uncovering Narco Airstrips in Paraguay
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Home to pumas, jaguars, and giant armadillos, Paraguay’s Chaco region is a biodiversity hotspot.

Lately, it has also become a hotbed of trafficking activity, with cocaine smugglers clearing large swathes of the forest to build secret runways used to fly drugs across the continent.

Last year, OCCRP reporter Aldo Benitez traveled through the remote region to find one of these hidden airstrips. ([link removed])

Read his story here ([link removed]) .
Inside The Story
A year after his expedition through the Chaco, reporter Benitez wanted to know if the narco-trafficking runway he found was still active — so he reached out to OCCRP’s Research and Data team for help.

Here’s a step-by-step guide ([link removed]) of how researcher Misha Gagarin approached the task, using free and open source methods to analyze the secret airstrip with satellite images.


** Gone But Not Forgotten: Continuing The Work of Murdered Paraguayan Investigative Journalists
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In 2022, 39-year-old Humberto Coronel was shot dead in the city of Pedro Juan Caballero, becoming the 18th journalist killed in Paraguay in 30 years.

This week, Forbidden Stories ([link removed]) , OCCRP, and other media partners launched the Paraguay Alliance ([link removed]) project to pick up where Coronel and others left off.

The investigations seek to continue the work of silenced journalists and expose networks of organized crime and corruption operating in Paraguay.

On Tuesday, the group released three new stories. Read more about them here ([link removed]) .

Find out more → ([link removed])
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** More OCCRP Reporting
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** Exposing Official Lies Over Kenyan Activist's Death In Custody
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An investigation by OCCRP member center Africa Uncensored ([link removed]) has laid bare inconsistencies and falsehoods in police’s official account of the death in custody ([link removed]) of the Kenyan activist and blogger Albert Ojwang.

Ojwang died in police custody last month after he was arrested for allegedly posting defamatory content online. An autopsy later revealed injuries consistent with physical assault, contradicting police claims that he died after hitting his head in a jail cell.

Using open-source digital forensics, Africa Uncensored has also found no evidence linking Ojwang to the social media post authorities cited to justify his arrest.

Kenyan President William Ruto condemned the killing and police misconduct. A formal investigation is ongoing.

Read the full story → ([link removed]) [link removed]
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** Belarusian Fertilizer Company Dodging EU Sanctions
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State-owned Belarusian fertilizer company Grodno Azot has continued exporting to the EU despite sanctions imposed by the bloc in 2021, an investigation by OCCRP partner Belarusian Investigative Center has found.

Fertilizer linked to the company has entered Europe with falsified documents, often routed through Latvia and falsely labeled as being manufactured by other Belarusian companies.

A leaked government document reveals the Belarusian regime’s role in setting up the scheme of “special exporters” to disguise Grodno Azot’s role and “overcome sanctions.”

In 2024, Grodno Azot’s exports to the EU were worth $59 million.

Read the full story → ([link removed])

📞 We want to hear from you!

We’d love to know why you read OCCRP and how you use our reporting. Your feedback helps us improve. Schedule a 15-minute call ([link removed]) with us ([link removed]) .


** News Briefs
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* A 62-year-old man is facing charges over a spiritual “blessing scam” in Australia ([link removed]) , which targeted elderly women of Chinese background and convinced them to hand over cash and valuables in order to lift curses.
* Experts warn that a provision in the United States’ “Big Beautiful Bill” ([link removed]) , which imposes a 1 percent tax on money sent abroad by immigrants, is likely to drive business for informal money transfer channels — many of which are linked to organized crime.
* Europol announced ([link removed]) the arrest of 28 suspected members of a cocaine trafficking network tied to the Italian mafia known as the ʼNdrangheta.
* U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans to impose a 50 percent tariff ([link removed]) on Brazilian imports, and denounced the trial of his ally, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, as a “witch hunt.”
* Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was indicted in absentia by a Dhaka court ([link removed]) on charges of crimes against humanity over the deaths of protesters in the 2024 crackdown. She remains in exile in India.
* Ukrainian men fleeing conscription are being detained in Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region ([link removed]) and interrogated by individuals believed to be from or linked to Russia’s Federal Security Service.
* An apparent purge continues in Russia ([link removed]) as top officials face a wave of accusations of corruption, arrests, and unexplained deaths.
* The U.S. has sanctioned ([link removed]) a Russian national and two of his companies for helping North Korean IT workers operate abroad using false identities.


** OCCRP News
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The CNN Worldwide documentary “NarcoFiles: Tren de Aragua ([link removed]) ” won an Emmy ([link removed]) in the Outstanding Investigative News Coverage in Spanish category.

The film was produced by CNN with support from OCCRP’s Latin America team as part of Narcofiles: The New Criminal Order ([link removed]) — a global collaborative investigative project into modern-day organized crime and those who fight it.

Watch the documentary → ([link removed])
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This week our Serbian member center KRIK marked its 10-year anniversary with party hats and cake — but the celebration took place outside ([link removed]) a Belgrade courtroom where its journalists are facing a lawsuit brought by a judge they investigated.

The judge is demanding prison sentences of 10 months each for editor-in-chief Stevan Dojčinović and reporter Bojana Pavlović, plus a two-year ban on practicing journalism.

Over the past decade, KRIK has relentlessly investigated Serbia’s political elites. Yet while these figures rarely see the inside of a courtroom, KRIK’s reporters have been bombarded with lawsuits intended to silence their work.

It’s a turbulent time for press freedom in Serbia — but KRIK won’t stop reporting. They do need your support, though.

Pleasedonate and help KRIK keep exposing corruption (http:// krik.rs/podrzi-nas) in Serbia.
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