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Hello John,
Before his arrest in Greece in July this year, Moldovan oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc spent years on the run, evading charges including creating and leading a criminal organization, as well as fraud and large-scale money laundering linked to the so-called “Billion Dollar Bank Fraud” that drained the country’s financial system between 2013 and 2015. Plahotniuc was extradited to Chișinău in September, and now faces additional charges stemming from the procurement of forged travel documents — false identities that enabled his life on the run. Read on for this and more of the latest in global organized crime and corruption. |
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| | | Jailed Moldovan Oligarch Hid Behind Maze of Fake Identities |
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| Once one of Moldova’s most powerful political figures, oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc spent years on the run, evading charges of allegedly creating and leading a criminal organization, as well as fraud and large-scale money laundering linked to the so-called “Billion-Dollar Bank Fraud” that drained the country’s financial system between 2013 and 2015. Now Plahotniuc, who was arrested in Greece in July and extradited to Chișinău in September 2025, faces additional charges stemming from the procurement of forged travel documents.
An investigation by Moldovan investigative media outlet CU SENS, in collaboration with OCCRP, reveals that he used at least six aliases to travel, and to conceal his whereabouts, while on the lam. Shortly after Plahotniuc’s arrest, police searches conducted at his Greek villa seized cash, luxury watches, electronic devices, and documents. CU SENS obtained copies of 21 seized documents, some of which had been kept in a safe. Among them were ID cards, driver's licenses, and passports — including a Moldovan diplomatic passport. |
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| The Stolen IdentitiesMihai Antohe (Romania)
Romanian authorities confirmed a criminal investigation has been opened over Plahotniuc’s use of several forged documents under the name of Mihai Antohe. The real Antohe, an entrepreneur with businesses in France, Italy, and Romania, denied any connection to the forged identity. “Don’t bother me,” he told reporters. Mykhailo Taushanzhy (Ukraine)
Plahotniuc possessed three forged documents under the name Mykhailo Taushanzhy — an identity taken from a man who was killed in 2003. Stanislav Kirsanov (Russia)
Plahotniuc used two false Russian identities, including that of Stanislav Kirsanov, who died in 2013. Passport numbers linked to Kirsanov corresponded to another Russian citizen now living in the United States, who said he was “shocked” to learn his identity had been used this way. Plahotniuc may have traveled to Moscow in 2024 and 2025 to meet an influential Kremlin figure before Moldova’s parliamentary elections, according to The Insider. Fereyduon Shaheen Yako Al-Shaheen (Iraq/Vanuatu)
Plahotniuc held an Iraqi passport as Fereyduon Shaheen Yako Al-Shaheen. With this identity, he obtained Vanuatu citizenship in 2022 under a “golden passport” citizenship-by-investment scheme. |
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| Plahotniuc’s ability to travel with relative ease by using false identities and forged documents has exposed serious gaps in international travel and identity systems. Read the full story → |
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| | | As Singaporean Police Investigated Money Laundering, Two Men Bought Up London Properties — And Dinosaur Bones |
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| Authorities in the U.K. have seized London properties — and three dinosaur skeletons — from a man previously wanted for questioning in a major money laundering investigation in Singapore. Two men who came under scrutiny by Singapore authorities in a massive money laundering ring investigation spent huge sums buying London properties around the time police disrupted the operation. Ten were arrested in the August 2023 Singapore raids that seized around $2.3 billion worth of assets deemed to be the proceeds of illegal gambling and cyber scam operations. However, as Singapore police closed in, Xu Haika, who remains under investigation in the case, and Su Binghai, who was wanted for questioning as a “person of interest,” fled the country. Before and after the police raids – between March and late August, 2023 – the Chinese nationals spent at least 40.5 million British pounds ($51 million) buying up 25 luxury apartments in central London, according to company and property registry documents. Both men used passports acquired through citizenship-by-investment schemes to set up U.K. companies. Additionally, Su Binghai spent 12.4 million British pounds ($16 million) on three complete fossilized dinosaur skeletons, the U.K.’s National Crime Agency said in a statement. Su Binghai has agreed to forfeit the properties, the dinosaur skeletons, and a collection of 11 Chinese artworks bought at auction for over $500,000. He will retain 25 percent of the profits from sales of those assets according to the forfeiture agreement, which was imposed under the Proceeds of Crime Act. We previously reported in 2023 about Su Binghai’s lavish life in Singapore. He and his wife struck a deal in October last year to surrender at least $243 million in assets to the Singapore government, in exchange for being removed from Interpol watchlists. He has been barred from returning to Singapore. Read the full story → |
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| | Romania Probes $300 Million CO2 Fraud at Steel Plant |
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| Romanian prosecutors are investigating a suspected $300 million fraud at Liberty Galați, the country’s largest steel plant, following raids at several locations in Bucharest as well as the eastern city of Galați. Prosecutors allege that members of Liberty Galați’s management embezzled company funds and created tax evasion schemes through fraudulent contracts and fictitious loans. Two company officials are alleged to have approved the transfer of $137 million worth of carbon dioxide emission certificates to two firms, including Russian energy giant Gazprom. Prosecutors also allege that another $57 million was siphoned from the company through fake consultancy and management contracts between 2020 and 2022. Investigators said transactions were used “as a tool for embezzlement and illicit tax optimization.” Read the full story → |
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| | Ukraine Cracks Down on ‘Shadow Managers’ in $100 Million Energy Corruption Case |
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| Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) this week announced it had begun dismantling a high-level conspiracy siphoning funds from state-owned energy company, Energoatom. NABU said it uncovered a group of so-called “shadow managers” who had infiltrated Energoatom — the largest producer of electricity in Ukraine — to extort kickbacks from contractors and had laundered an estimated $100 million in illicit funds. The criminal network, NABU said, had effectively seized control of the strategic enterprise, which generates an annual income of more than 200 billion hryvnias (about $4.9 billion). Five suspects have been detained, while seven others have been formally notified of their suspected involvement, including the alleged ringleader, a former adviser to the energy minister, and Energoatom’s executive director for physical protection and security. Timur Mindich, a businessman and close associate of President Volodymyr Zelensky, appears to be the first individual who will face sanctions for his involvement, while suspended Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko, who served as energy minister until July 2025 has also been named a suspect in the case. Separately, Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies have transferred about 44 million hryvnias ($1.04 million) recovered through plea agreements in corruption cases to a charity, which will use the seized illicit funds to buy first-person-view attack drones for the country’s armed forces. Read the full story → |
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| | Georgian Prosecutors Link Bridge Collapse to Corruption and Falsified Records |
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| Prosecutors in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi this week charged five people, including a former senior transport official, over alleged embezzlement and fraud at a state-funded highway construction project. The case is linked to the 2023 collapse of a bridge under construction on the Samtredia-Grigoleti Highway, in western Georgia. The former deputy chair of the Georgian Roads Department, Levan Kupatashvili, was the only named defendant. He faces up to 11 years in prison if convicted of embezzlement and abuse of official powers. Four others — an unnamed director, two project managers at Azerbaijani construction firm Akkord, and the lead engineer of an international consortium that supervised the work — have been charged in absentia. They face up to nine years in prison for alleged embezzlement and forgery. Read the full story → |
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| | | OCCRP Wins Seven EPPY Awards for Investigative Journalism
In collaboration with our media partners, OCCRP has won seven EPPY Awards. Our investigation with RFE/RL’s Schemes, titled In the Russian Penal Colony, They Called Him ‘Dr. Evil’, won Best Investigative/Enterprise Feature for exposing Ilya Sorokin, a Russian prison doctor who tortured Ukrainian POWs. Following the investigation, the EU imposed sanctions against Sorokin. Scam Empire and The Steward Files were also recognized, placing second and third in the Best Collaborative Investigative/ Enterprise Reporting and Best Investigative/Enterprise Video categories. Scam Empire also earned second place for Best Business Reporting. |
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| | | | Italy has returned a trove of smuggled Bronze Age antiquities to Pakistan, marking a major step in efforts to protect the South Asian nation’s cultural heritage. The former First Lady of Gabon Sylvia Bongo and her son, both living in exile in London, were sentenced in absentia to 20 years’ jail time for embezzlement, bribery, money laundering, and corruption-related offenses over funds siphoned from the state budget as former President Ali Bongo Ondimba’s health declined after a stroke in 2018. Turkish prosecutors this week accused the incarcerated mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, of a litany of offenses, including corruption, organized crime, bribery, money laundering, and fraud, with alleged public losses topping $3.8 billion. If convicted on all 143 counts, he could face a prison sentence of up to 2,430 years. Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan fell 20 percent in 2025 compared to the previous year, according to a new report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, with production dropping by 32 percent and farmers’ sales income plunging by almost 50 percent, continuing a downward trend that began in 2022 with the Taliban instituting a nationwide ban on the crop. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was released from prison this week on the orders of a Paris court, after serving just three weeks of a five-year sentence for criminal conspiracy. A new appeal trial is scheduled for next spring, and in the interim he is barred from leaving France or contacting anyone linked to the case. A Bulgarian court has postponed a hearing on Lebanon’s extradition request for Russian-Cypriot ship operator Igor Grechushkin, who was implicated in the 2020 Beirut port explosion that killed more than 200 people, pending assurances that he will not face the death penalty. More than 900 people have been arrested by British police in a nationwide crackdown on high street businesses, including mini-marts, vape shops, barbers and takeout restaurants, which the National Crime Agency said were suspected of being “fronts for serious organized crime, money laundering and illegal working.” Chinese national Qian Zhimin and accomplice Seng Hok Ling were sentenced this week in London for laundering funds from a fraudulent investment scheme that targeted 128,000 victims inside China and caused losses of roughly $790 million. Their April arrests led to what the U.K. police claimed to be the largest-ever crypto seizure. The U.S. this week sanctioned Myanmar rebel group the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army and four of its senior leaders, as well as a Thai national and two Thai companies over ties to cyber-scam compounds linked to human trafficking.
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| Inside Job: Behind the Scenes at OCCRP |
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| | As COP30, the United Nations climate talks, takes place in Belem, Brazil, we spoke with Brazil Editor Eduardo Goulart, an investigative reporter with a focus on environmental crime. Eduardo shares his day-to-day routine, his passion for uncovering hidden truths, and his insights into the challenges and opportunities for environmental journalism, including leveraging AI. Make sure to check out his playlist of Brazilian songs — he says they explain the country better than words. Read the interview → |
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