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December 19, 2025
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Fiji faces possible downgrading on the United States’ global human trafficking index over its failure to take action against a Korean doomsday cult accused of a slew of violations.

Read on for this and more of the latest in global crime and corruption.

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P.S. This is our last OCCRP Weekly newsletter for 2025. We’ll be back mid-January. Sending our best wishes to you and yours this holiday season.

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** OCCRP Scoop
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** US Aid to Fiji at Risk Over Impunity for Doomsday Cult
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The Pacific island nation of Fiji faces downgrading to the lowest tier on the U.S. global human trafficking index over its failure to take meaningful action against a Korean doomsday cult alleged to be involved in “transnational organized crime.”

In late September, the U.S. State Department singled out the Grace Road cult for the first time in its annual Trafficking in Persons report, noting that the group’s 300-odd members in Fiji “experience conditions indicative of human trafficking,” and are alleged to be “forced to work excessive hours with no rest days,” facing physical violence, passport confiscation, and unpaid wages.

The Grace Road group has enjoyed impunity since its relocation to Fiji from South Korea in 2014, ahead of what its adherents believe is a coming nuclear Armageddon.
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Its founder, Korean grandmother Ok-joo Shin, was arrested on arrival at Seoul’s Incheon International Airport in 2018, and remains imprisoned on convictions including child abuse, assault, and fraud.

Despite her imprisonment, and Korean arrest warrants out for her son and other top local leaders, the group has prospered in Fiji: Previous OCCRP reporting ([link removed]) has shown how the cult received support from the previous, authoritarian regime, including millions of dollars in state-backed loans.

Fiji faces dwindling foreign aid. While the U.S. is by no means its biggest donor — it contributed just $6.5 million, or roughly two percent of total foreign aid for 2023 — any TIP downgrade could jeopardise plans for its inclusion in the Millennium Challenge Corporation compact program, a U.S. aid initiative aimed at reducing poverty and promoting economic growth.

Read the full story → ([link removed])


** New Investigation
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** Con Air: Drug-Smuggling Aircraft Reveal U.S. Aviation’s Regulatory ‘Blind Spot’
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Small aircraft and private jets have for decades been an indispensable part of the logistics chain for organized crime groups involved in large-scale narcotics smuggling.

U.S.-registered aircraft attract less scrutiny, and are easily registered — including to anonymous offshore customers, trusts and shell companies. This has created a lucrative niche for brokers like Californian Lance Zane Ricotta

Ricotta told OCCRP reporters that the planes he’d sold which ended up in drug trafficking incidents represented a small percentage of the “hundreds” he had sold over the years, asking “Are you responsible if you sold a car to a guy and he goes and robs a bank?”

Ricotta first came to the attention of reporters during the NarcoFiles ([link removed]) investigation, when they reviewed a leak which revealed Colombian prosecutors believed Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa Cartel was behind a jet abandoned in Venezuela, which they found had been owned by Ricotta’s R Consulting & Sales.

Reporters identified 30 sales tied to Ricotta or his companies since 2014. Of these, more than one-third were later seized, investigated, or found abroad in suspected or confirmed drug cases — often immediately after the sale.

Read ([link removed]) the ([link removed]) full story → ([link removed])
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** More OCCRP Reporting
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** These 81 Investment Platforms Were Part of a Scam Network. Here’s What We Learned About Them.
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For almost four years, dozens of investment platforms were advertised to a global audience of novice investors, promising easy profits from trading currencies, gold, oil and gas, cryptocurrency, and other popular assets.

They were assured they would receive guidance from experts — as well as “welcome bonuses.”

What appeared to be a diverse ecosystem of 81 companies, websites and platforms in reality served a single scam operation, with agents working out of call centers in Israel, Cyprus, Bulgaria, and Spain.

An unprecedented leak of audio files, videos, and documents from the scammers’ computers allowed reporters to see that proceeds were funneled through the same shell companies and mixed together, tracked on the same internal spreadsheets.

Read the full story → ([link removed])

Our Scam Empire investigation ([link removed] ) brought together over 30 media partners to expose two scam center operations, which had bilked at least 32,000 people globally out of $275 million since early 2021.


** Prosecutors Decline To Investigate Claims OCCRP Violated Swiss Banking Secrecy Laws
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Swiss prosecutors have declined to open a criminal investigation following a complaint from private bank Reyl, which claimed OCCRP and its media partners had violated the country’s banking secrecy laws.

The criminal complaint requested interrogations and searches at the offices and homes of three Swiss journalists who cooperated with OCCRP.

The complaint came in response to a joint investigation by OCCRP and partners, which revealed how accounts belonging to high-risk Reyl customers were being probed by Switzerland’s financial regulator, amid a broader investigation into alleged anti-money laundering weaknesses at the Geneva-headquartered private bank.

Read the full story → ([link removed])

We investigate corruption. Swiss law calls that a crime.

Read an opinion piece ([link removed]) from our journalists and partners on the arcane legal provisions stifling freedom of expression.


** Uncovered Aliases Reveal Deeper Ties to Scam Syndicate
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“Chen Xiao’er,” a Chinese national sanctioned by the U.S. earlier this year over ties to a Cambodia-based firm linked to cyber-scam operations, appears to have played a more significant role in the network than previously thought.

OCCRP has discovered that businessman “Chen Xiao’er” was involved in the Cambodia-headquartered Prince Group under multiple identities.

Three of the four newly discovered aliases were not listed in the recent sanctions notice. Reporters have now uncovered his other identities — and they show deeper connections to the conglomerate.

Read the full story → ([link removed])


** Ukrainian Teen Reunited With Baby After Yearlong Separation in Turkey Evacuation Scandal
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A Ukrainian teenager, who became pregnant while in Turkey as part of an evacuation program run by a high-profile charity, has been reunited with her daughter almost a year after the newborn was taken from her.

Her case was highlighted in an investigation ([link removed]) published last week by OCCRP and partners Slidstvo and Investigace, which detailed how hundreds of children from Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region were taken to hotels in Turkey under the “Childhood Without War” mass evacuation program, organized and funded by businessman Ruslan Shostak.

The 17-year-old mother and her daughter have recently moved into a Ukrainian mother-and-child center, where they will receive housing, food and basic support.

Read the full story → ([link removed])


** 📞 We want to hear from you!
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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 with us ([link removed]) .


** News Briefs
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* The Pacific island nation of Fiji faces downgrading ([link removed]) to the lowest tier on the U.S. global human trafficking index over its failure to take meaningful action against a Korean doomsday cult alleged to be involved in “transnational organized crime.”
* Slovenian investigative outlet Oštro is facing ([link removed]) a coordinated barrage of criminal and data-protection complaints from officials, attritional attacks press-freedom advocates say are an attempt to obstruct its asset-transparency reporting.
* The E.U. has imposed ([link removed]) sanctions on five individuals and four companies for supporting Russia’s “shadow fleet,” a maritime network which enables Russia to circumvent restrictions on its export of crude oil.
* Pro-democracy activist and media tycoon Jimmy Lai has been convicted ([link removed]) by a Hong Kong court on national security charges that could see him jailed for life, in a landmark verdict widely seen as a blow to press freedom in the special administrative region of China.
* Russian-Cypriot ship operator Igor Grechushkin will be questioned ([link removed]) in Bulgaria by Lebanese authorities over the 2020 Beirut port explosion, after an extradition request was rejected due to death penalty concerns.
* “Special operations” over the past two years by the Myanmar junta have led to the repatriation ([link removed]) of more than 70,000 foreign nationals forced to work at scam centers.
* Nepal’s anti-graft body has filed ([link removed]) corruption charges against the former head of the Pokhara Airport project, alleging he illegally acquired the equivalent of about $172,000 over the course of his 25-year public career.
* Newly-obtained data shows ([link removed]) that national authorities often do not read warnings about doctors sent by their overseas counterparts, highlighting further shortcomings in the international information-sharing mechanisms exposed in our recent Bad Practice investigation ([link removed]) .


** About Our Network
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** The Lifeblood of Our Reporting
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OCCRP’s co-founders knew early on that collaboration was key to fighting global corruption and transnational crime.

We support and work closely with 75+ independent media outlets around the world, helping local reporters make cross-border connections, and bringing their stories to a larger audience.

These “member centers” share data, expertise, and local knowledge — which, in turn, strengthens the entire network, helping us uncover more crime and corruption.

Find out more about our member centers ([link removed]) →

This week in Azerbaijan, the trial of twelve journalists began ([link removed]) — including staff from OCCRP member center Meydan TV.

They were arrested over a year ago, and stand accused of financial crimes — allegations international press freedom groups say are part of the government's efforts to silence its critics.

Press watchdog Reporters Without Borders slammed the financial crimes charges as “blatantly fabricated” and called for their immediate and unconditional release.


** Announcements
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Thank you for your Anti-Crime and Corruption Heroes nominations!

We are reviewing all the entries and will be announcing the winners in January.

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