Over a decade ago, Dejan Stanimirović was the business partner of Nikola Petrović, widely known in Serbia as the “best man” of the president, Aleksandar Vučić. Then he turned up dead in the home of an alleged Colombian drug boss. European police officials told journalists he was known to them as a cocaine trafficker.
Read more: Member of Serbian President’s Inner Circle Partnered With Alleged Drug Trafficker
In 2017, Spanish authorities cracked down on over two dozen shell companies, masquerading as a bank in Madrid, that were allegedly laundering money for criminal clients. Since then, figures linked to that operation, which used the name “Bandenia,” have gone on to open hundreds of new companies in the U.K. and other jurisdictions — even one that pretends to be a thriving British bank.
Read more: A Fake Bank Was Shut Down in Spain. Now a New One Has Popped Up in the U.K.
Revealing photographs of journalists and activists are proliferating on social media. Many Azerbaijanis, and the women themselves, suspect they were planted by the country’s authoritarian government as revenge against speaking out. The government denies the claims.
Narmin Shahmarzade (front right), a women’s rights activist, protesting against the political use of revenge porn. (Photo: Meydan TV)
Read more: How Revenge Porn is Used to Silence Dissidents in Azerbaijan
Two girls from occupied Kherson were taken far from home and kept for months in prison-like conditions — until journalists helped them flee. Hundreds or perhaps thousands more Ukrainian children remain in Russian hands.
Nastia Mitrofanova and Masha Senchuk, two Ukrainian girls who were held against their will in occupied territory. (Photo: Slidstvo.Info)
Read more: How Two Ukrainian Teenagers Escaped Russian Captivity
A leaked report sheds light on the source of a mysterious media attack on the Serbian president’s political rival.
Read more: Israeli Disinformation Expert Linked to Faked Bank Accounts in Serbian Smear Campaign
OCCRP Publisher Drew Sullivan will speak with veteran crime reporter Stevan Dojčinović about his experience investigating organized crime groups in a live OCCRP Discussion on Tuesday, March 28, 2023, at 16:00 CET/10:00 EDT.
Read more: How the New Mafia Really Works: OCCRP Journalists Discuss Organized Crime
Prosecutors in Lebanon and Europe are investigating the longtime Banque du Liban governor, Riad Salame, for suspected money laundering and corruption. He’s also been blamed for the country’s financial crisis. But Salame claims he is a scapegoat.
(Photo: James O’Brien/OCCRP)
Read more: Who Is Riad Salame? Lebanon’s Central Bank Chief Accused of Embezzlement
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his ruling party have spent years turning Hungary’s media environment into their playground — not through outright repression, but through market distortion and regulatory capture. Can anything be done?
A man adjusts Hungarian flags before a pro-Orban protest in Budapest, in March 2018. (Photo: Reuters/Alamy Stock Photo)
Read more: ‘They Tried to Frame Us’: New Assault on Hungarian Journalists Highlights Media Freedom Crisis in...
Hitmen working for a criminal group active in Montenegro and Serbia used open-source intelligence techniques, poring over apartment listing sites, satellite images, and tourist photos posted online, to track down and kill the leader of a rival clan as he hid out in Greece.
Read more: How a Montenegrin Gang Used Open-Source Intelligence to Kill
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is deeply concerned that if this bill is enacted, it could be used to crack down on independent media and civil society.
Protests on March 7 outside Parliament in Tbilisi while lawmakers discuss the proposed foreign agent bill. The signs say, “No Russian influence in Georgia!” and “Georgia will not become Russia!” (Photo: OCCRP)
Read more: OCCRP Condemns Proposed “Foreign Agent” Bill in Georgia