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WHEN ORGANIZED CRIME USES OSINT 🇲🇪
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Journalists use “open source intelligence” — which leverages publicly available data like social media posts and flight tracking records — to investigate war crimes, unexplained wealth, and other wrongdoings.
But criminals can use these techniques too. Using a leaked police report, our Serbian member center KRIK 🇷🇸 detailed how one Balkan gang used OSINT to track down and kill a rival crime boss in Greece.
You can read an English version of their investigation here ([link removed]) . This is our latest story in the Balkan Cocaine Wars series.
Not familiar with Balkan Cocaine Wars ([link removed]) ? OCCRP, along with our member centers in Serbia and Montenegro, have spent years covering the ongoing conflict between two Montenegrin cocaine clans, the Kavač and the Škaljari, which has left a trail of bodies throughout Europe.
** OCCRP FIGHTS FOR PRESS FREEDOM
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🇬🇪 iFact and Studio Monitori: Our Georgian member centers received a jolt last week when lawmakers began to consider a so-called “foreign agent” bill — legislation similar to the law that Russia has used to silence independent journalists and civil society at home.
Thankfully, two days of mass protests pushed the ruling Georgian Dream party to scrap the proposed law ([link removed]) . Our colleagues were on the streets to cover this historic moment in the country’s democracy.
“We tried with all our might to bring the information to the public correctly, what the result would be in the event of the adoption of this law,” said Nanuka Bregadze, an OCCRP fellow as well as an investigative reporter at iFact.
While Georgia has reversed course, two other post-Soviet countries, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, may pass their own versions of a “foreign agent” law that could be used to easily silence any media outlet that receives money from people or organizations based abroad.
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🇭🇺 Atlatszo: Our Hungarian member center has been the target of a coordinated smear campaign by pro-government outlets apparently working in concert.We explain ([link removed]) how Viktor Orbán has tamed Hungary's media landscape — while attracting minimal censure from the EU.
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** MORE FROM THE OCCRP NETWORK
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🇸🇾 SIRAJ: The founder of our Syrian partner gives a behind-the-scenes look into how he worked with OCCRP to ([link removed]) expose the illicit trade in Syrian phosphates, a key ingredient in fertilizer, using trade data, shipping information, and social media posts. You can read that investigation here ([link removed]) .
🇩🇪 Paper Trail Media: Our colleague Frederik Obermaier, the award-winning German journalist who first obtained the data leak that became the Panama Papers, discusses his career in investigative journalism ([link removed]) with the Global Investigative Journalism Network.
🇷🇺 IStories: “It’s not so scary to go into the fire as to go to a [protest] alone.” Our Russian member center speaks with a former firefighter ([link removed]) from the Rostov Region about why he opposes the Vladimir Putin regime.
** ANALYSIS: LIBEL TOURISM
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➡️ The London Review of Books explains why the U.K. legal system is preferred by wealthy people ([link removed]) looking to target journalists with frivolous defamation lawsuits, known as SLAPPs — an issue the OCCRP network has first-hand experience with.
** MORE CORRUPTION NEWS
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➡️ Human rights lawyers have called on the International Criminal Court to open an investigation ([link removed]) into alleged crimes against humanity committed by the Turkish government, which the lawyers detailed in a 4,000 page dossier.
➡️ Greek anti-corruption prosecutor Eleni Touloupaki has walked free from court ([link removed]) after she was tried for abuse of power following her investigation into bribery of top government officials.
** MORE ORGANIZED CRIME NEWS
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➡️ A member of the #RivieraMayaGang, a ATM-skimming syndicate, and his wife made more than $15 million by copying credit cards and withdrawing cash — until a Facebook post led ([link removed]) to their arrest.
➡️ A woman who fled to Montenegro last year to avoid a prison sentence for her role in a COVID-19 relief fund scamhas been extradited to the United States ([link removed]) .
P.S. Thank you for reading the OCCRP newsletter. Feel free to reply with any feedback.
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