Greetings from Amsterdam,

This is the final OCCRP newsletter of 2022, a year in which our network had a huge impact.

We published our two largest investigative projects ever: Suisse Secrets and Russian Asset Tracker. These projects and other stories spurred officials to take action against sanction evaders, organized crime bosses, and corrupt, politically-connected elites.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, authorities charged presidential adviser Vidiye Tshimanga after OCCRP exposed a corrupt mining deal he offered investors. 

This newsletter has been critical in helping us spread the word about our investigations, developments in the anti-corruption movement, and threats facing our colleagues.

Thank you for subscribing, and please let us know how our newsletters could improve. 

Now, for the latest in global crime and corruption:

NEW INVESTIGATIONS

🌐 The Big Picture: Lawyers for Roman Abramovich argue that their client, the former owner of Chelsea Football Club, has weak ties to the Kremlin, and thus should not be sanctioned like other Russian oligarchs. But our investigation shows he was in business with the Russian government for years.

🤔 Our Data and Sources: This investigation is primarily based on leaked documents from Cypriot corporate services provider Meritservus. A letter from Meritservus confirms that Abramovich is the ultimate beneficial owner of Protonius, a client of Meritservus. Protonius held a stake in the forestry company partly owned by Russia’s sovereign wealth fund. 

🇧🇾 Bogus Paperwork Gets Banned Russian and Belarusian Wood Into EU 🇷🇺 Wood imports from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have spiked in the EU this year — at least on paper.

Reporters found multiple companies offering bogus paperwork to disguise the origin of Russian and Belarusian wood, imports of which were banned by the EU after the invasion of Ukraine.
>> Read the full story

🌐 The Big Picture: Immediately after the EU banned the import of Russian and Belarusian wood, an illicit business model sprang up offering ways to get around the restrictions. This story illustrates the difficulty of enforcing a strict sanctions regime.

🤔 Our Data and Sources: This investigation is based on information reporters obtained while posing as potential clients, documents associated with wood shipments, and interviews with customs officials. 

🇨🇭 More Suisse Secrets — We found another bank account at the Swiss lender Credit Suisse tied to a politically exposed person: Akan Ismaili in Kosovo, a former ambassador and telecoms tycoon. >> Read the full story

🌐 The Big Picture: Under Kosovo law, senior public officials who hide their assets or make false declarations can be imprisoned for up to five years.

THE OCCRP NETWORK

🇷🇺 IStories: Our Russian member center reports on how technology made by major Western companies is used in the manufacture of Russian military drones.

🇰🇿 Vlast.Kz: Russia’s media regulator has demanded that Kazakh authorities take down articles published by our Kazakhstani member center. The stories in question are about the Russian military’s attack in Ukraine. 

🇭🇺 Atlatszo: In August 2020, our Hungarian member center photographed the country’s influential Minister of Foreign Affairs on a luxury yacht, which was owned by a politically connected businessman. 

But information about the yacht’s owners is no longer available to the public after a stunning ruling by the European Court of Justice, which you learn more about here.

🇬🇶 Delfin Mocache Massoko: South Africa’s High Court ruled that NJ Ayuk, one of Equatorial Guinea’s most influential lawyers, must apologize to our colleague Delfin Mocache Massoko for his defamatory remarks against him. 

Thank you to everyone who supported Delfin while he was being targeted. 

A LOOK AT AN ANTI-CORRUPTION EFFORT

🇰🇿 A Campaign Against Corruption or a Way of Securing Power? After widespread protests against corruption, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev vowed to be different from his predecessor, longtime strongman Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Tokayev has led a crackdown on elites who stole state assets. Billions of dollars have already been recovered.

But experts fear that the president’s backroom decisions are leaving the public in the dark — and serving primarily his own interests. >> Read the full story

OCCRP HAS IMPACT

Confirmation From a Mining Giant: Ivanhoe Mines Ltd confirmed suspicions that it had a business relationship with former Congolese presidential advisor Vidiye Tshimanga, who was arrested after OCCRP exposed a corrupt deal he offered investors.

Fraud Factory Busts: In 2020, OCCRP exposed scam call centers that defrauded people around the world out of billions of dollars by hawking bogus crypto investments.

This week, Spanish authorities took action by arresting a key figure in the fraud network as well as issuing an arrest warrant against Amant Josifi, a former Albanian government official who allegedly owned one of the scam call centers.

Italian Court Case Against Big Tobacco: A court in Rome is deliberating whether to uphold a ban on the sale of two brands of Camel and Winston cigarettes after OCCRP and its partners revealed that they contained more menthol flavoring than legally allowed.