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NEW INVESTIGATION
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🇵🇬 Murdered Papua New Guinea Ports Official Benefitted From Suspect Offshore Payments ([link removed])
💁 Breakdown of our Findings:
➡️ Global port operator ICTSI paid US$4.3 million to an offshore account around the time it won contracts to run Papua New Guinea’s biggest container terminals.
➡️ The offshore account was owned by Don Matheson, a well-connected Australian consultant in Papua New Guinea (PNG).
➡️ From 2010, Matheson consulted with PNG Ports, the state-owned corporation that has authority over the terminals.
➡️ Two senior PNG Port officials then received apparent benefits from Matheson’s offshore account, records show.
1. Stanley Alphonse. Records show he received A$30,000 from the Matheson account when he was the head of PNG Ports.
2. Fego Kiniafa. The head of PNG Ports from 2019 until 2022 when he was brutally murdered in an unconnected incident. Records show the Matheson account sent money, which was apparently used to pay for perks for Kiniafa when he headed PNG Ports. The perks included an interest in a racehorse and medical equipment.
Alphonse has denied any wrongdoing. Matheson, via lawyers, declined to answer reporters’ questions.
>> Read the full story ([link removed])
🌐 The Big Picture: Before Kiniafa’s murder, he helped negotiate a A$621+ million deal for Australia to fund the expansion of PNG’s ports.
The investment is part of Australian efforts to fend off China’s growing influence in the Pacific.
The transactions exposed in this investigation could raise further questions about the future of Australia’s big geopolitical bet.
🤔 Our Data and Sources: This investigation is based on documents from the Pandora Papers ([link removed]) , a 2021 leak of millions of files from service providers of offshore companies, which were obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and shared with media outlets around the world, including OCCRP.
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** THE OCCRP NETWORK
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🇷🇺 IStories: Our Russian member center takes a look at changes in the country’s job market ([link removed]) since the invasion of Ukraine, including an increase in demand for female labor to replace young men forced into military conscription.
* Also: Proekt Media, an OCCRP partner, reveals that Vladimir Putin’s reputed girlfriend, former Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva, enjoys the use of "the largest apartment in Russia ([link removed]) .”
🇬🇶 Diario Rombe: Our partner in Equatorial Guinea reports on the connections ([link removed]) between the country’s vice president, a superyacht that he is believed to own, and an Emirati sheik.
🇮🇹 IrpiMedia: Our Italian member center reports on migrant farmers who work on kiwi plantations ([link removed]) in the country, often in very poor conditions.
🇭🇺 Atlatszo: Our Hungarian member center reports that the government spent HUF 16.6 billion ([link removed]) (USD$46.6 million) in 2022 on advertising in media outlets that support Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
👀 OCCRP: We have a new editor in chief! ([link removed]) Miranda Patrucic, one of OCCRP’s first employees, will now oversee the reporting and production of our investigations. Patrucic is an award-winning journalist who has led internationally-renowned investigations in the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
** SWISS SECRECY UPDATES
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🇨🇭Credit Suisse Secretly Consulted Prosecutors: Swiss prosecutors secretly consulted Credit Suisse ([link removed]) on how to frame a press statement about the bank.
* What was this press statement? It was a response to a journalist who asked the Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s office if it was investigating Credit Suisse after OCCRP, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and partners revealed that the bank had served a litany of criminal and politically-connected clients.
You can read more about these revelations in our project,#SuisseSecrets ([link removed]) , which is based on leaked Credit Suisse records.
* How did the prosecutor’s office respond? Prosecutors said they were building a case, but not against Credit Suisse. Rather, they were after the whistleblower ([link removed]) behind the Suisse Secrets leak.
* The new revelations: This week, our colleagues at Paper Trail Media and Tamedia uncovered that the prosecutor’s office asked Credit Suisse for “feedback” before sending their response to the journalist. The bank offered edits to the statement, but asked the prosecutors to not mention that they had reviewed the copy.
🇨🇭 Reexamining Swiss Banking Secrecy: Swiss banks are attractive for many criminals and corrupt officials in part because of a law known as Article 47, which criminalizes the disclosure of confidential banking information.
In light of Suisse Secrets, the Swiss parliament voted to launch an inquiry ([link removed]) into whether the legislation needs to be updated.
** OCCRP HAS IMPACT
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🇧🇬 Bulgaria: Bulgarian authorities have ramped up their investigation ([link removed]) into an alleged multi-million euro fraud involving misreported CO2 emissions, some of which was exposed in a 2021 OCCRP investigation. ([link removed])
** MORE CORRUPTION NEWS
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Vietnam’s legislature named a new president ([link removed]) as part of the country’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign that has deposed several national leaders.
Members of Spain’s ruling Socialist Party have been accused of taking advantage of public tenders ([link removed]) in the Canary Islands three months ahead of regional and local elections.
A former city council member in Philadelphia, USA was sentenced to prison ([link removed]) for receiving payments and other benefits from a local union leader in exchange for political favors.
The outgoing CEO of Eskom, South Africa’s state-owned power company, claimed in a televised interview ([link removed]) that government officials had pressured him to weaken anti-corruption measures.
** MORE ORGANIZED CRIME NEWS
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The growing arts and antiquities sector is an attractive market for money laundering, according to a report ([link removed]) from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental watchdog group.
The Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine has severed ties between organized crime groups in the two nations, with Ukrainian gangs reportedly helping authorities catch their Russian counterparts, according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime ([link removed]) .
P.S. Thank you for reading the OCCRP newsletter. Feel free to reply with any feedback.
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