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The director of investments for the Iraqi Secret Service under the regime of authoritarian leader Saddam Hussein. Al-Dulaimi, who handled overseas investments on behalf of the intelligence agency, was sanctioned by the United States in 1992, and by the United Nations in 2004. Dulaimi’s legal representative commented to OCCRP that its inquiry was “old news” and “not accurate.”
The son of one of a group of officers led by Muammar Gaddafi that overthrew Libya’s monarchy and took power in 1969.
Hamedi is president of the International Organization for Peace, Care and Relief, which the UNHCR once described in press releases as its “main partner in Libya on ensuring protection for refugees and asylum-seekers.” In regional media, he has also been an outspoken defender of Gaddafi and his father, el-Khweldi el-Hamedi, who have both been accused of human rights abuses and large-scale corruption.
Hamedi’s father’s rank in the Libyan military, his close relationship to Gaddafi, and his alleged role in the bloody crackdown on protests, raised the ire of NATO.
King Abdulla II Bin al Hussein and Queen Rania Al Abdullah
Political
Jordan
CHF 230,278,386
Jordan’s monarch since 1999, the authoritarian King Abdullah II has used wide-ranging executive powers to crack down on free speech and political opposition following accusations of corruption at home.
Last year’s Pandora Papers investigation revealed how the monarch funneled US$100 million through secret companies to buy luxury real estate in the U.K. and U.S. Abdullah’s wife, Queen Rania, also held an account with at least 39.1 million Swiss francs.
The royal family’s lawyers said the “relevant accounts are used for the acquisition of assets, investments, operational and personal expenses and general disbursements, including the funding of certain royal initiatives” and that the king and queen “have never extracted, in any manner, funds from the Treasury, public assets, international assistance or government budget to accounts situated abroad or for his personal enrichment.”
The former president of state-owned Banco Industrial de Venezuela was sanctioned by the U.S. for his role in a $2.4 billion bribery scheme, run through a controversial currency exchange program. The U.S. Treasury Department described him as a financial “front man” for corrupt Venezuelan officials.
He has also been suspected of laundering money on behalf of a Colombian terror group, and was a politically-exposed person (PEP) long before he first opened his accounts.
Known as LAFICO, the state-owned fund oversaw the Libyan government’s investments inside and outside of the country.
It was widely understood to be controlled by the family of Muammar Gaddafi before his downfall, and over the years reportedly acquired minority shares in the Italian Juventus football club, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and the carmaker Fiat.
The former financial director of La Electricidad de Caracas, a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA.
In 2017, he was arrested in Spain and extradited to the U.S. for his role in a sprawling bribery scheme within PDVSA. He pleaded guilty to receiving kickbacks from businessmen in return for assistance and state contracts. He was also charged that same year in Andorra for laundering the proceeds through Banca Privada d’Andorra.
A Libyan oil tycoon who funded lobbying efforts that helped promote the Gaddafi regime, implicated in corruption allegations in Jordan and Venezuela.
His highest-value account, which he denies ever having, was worth roughly half a billion dollars in 2010, a year before the Libyan uprising. Since then he’s also supported the campaign of a renegade general opposed to Libya’s U.N.-recognized government, and announced plans to run for president himself.
Counting presidents from Africa to Latin America amongst his friends, this Portuguese businessman based in Angola billed his venture Escom as a point of contact for nations and international entities looking to invest in Africa. With success has come scrutiny, in several corruption probes across Europe. He is also a close associate of Álvaro Sobrinho, suspected of laundering money while serving as head of an Escom-linked bank in Angola.
According to Portuguese newspaper Expresso, the pair shared a company engaged in $1.6 billion worth of irregular transactions and loans. They also shared three accounts at Credit Suisse.
Bataglia told OCCRP that he had closed all of his accounts with Credit Suisse by 2021, but denied having shared accounts with Sobrinho.
When Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos was toppled in 1986, having stolen up to $10 billion in state funds over two decades, he fled to Hawaii. There he enlisted the help of a lawyer, Helen Ann Teodoro Rivilla, to launder $3 million on his behalf through Honolulu banks over a period of two years. The U.S. indicted both her and her husband, Antonio C.M. Rivilla.
The Rivillas’ names appear on two accounts in the data: one whose maximum balance was over 8 million francs, shared between Antonio and seven other people surnamed Rivilla, and a smaller one holding just under 180,000 Swiss francs shared between Helen and Antonio Rivilla.
Hussein Salem
Political
Egypt
CHF 104,780,404
Egyptian tycoon with longtime ties to intelligence agencies and the ruling Mubarak family. Hussein Salem’s name had become a byword for cronyism and corruption by the time of the Arab Spring.
At least a dozen Credit Suisse accounts were opened in his name, despite public corruption scandals dating back to the early 1980s.
Long-time secretary general of Uzbekistan’s Tennis Federation.
In 2005, Shepelev was awarded the “Order of Friendship” for “courage in defense of national interests” among other achievements, by then-President Islam Karimov. The order listed him as an employee of the State Security Service.
Nothing else is known about his work within the service — which has been accused of gross violations of human rights.
Taiwanese politician who served as secretary-general of Taiwan’s Kuomintang Party (KMT) and has played a prominent role in Taiwanese politics throughout the past 30 years. Today he leads his own party, and mounted an unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 2020.
The KMT took him to court claiming he embezzled millions of dollars of the party’s funds, though the charges were eventually dropped. Later, Soong was accused by a former French foreign minister of receiving kickbacks from a 1991 navy procurement deal, signed while he was secretary-general of the KMT. He denied corruption and no actual proof of his involvement was ever found.
The head of the customs office in the border town of Brod was placed under investigation and detained for corruption in connection to a crime ring that included the customs authorities.
According to the state prosecutor, the scheme to fake invoices of imports into Bosnia and Herzegovina cost the state budget 153 million euros. The alleged scheme ran all the way to the top of the national tax authority.
José Filomeno dos Santos
Political
Angola
CHF 18,255,265
The son of Angolan dictator José Eduardo dos Santos, José Filomino was appointed head of Fundo Soberano de Angola (FSDEA), Angola’s $5 billion sovereign wealth fund, at just 35 years old.
After his father’s notoriously corrupt 38-year rule came to an end in 2017, José Filomino was sentenced to five years in prison in Angola for embezzling $500 million from FSDEA in a scheme involving transfers to a Credit Suisse account in London.
Algeria’s longest-serving president, leading the country from 1999 until his 2019 resignation following months of mass protest against his appointment for a fifth term. His rule was marred by allegations of fraud and vote-tampering at successive elections.
A major pillar of former Syrian dictator Hafez al-Assad’s rule, Khaddam served in high-level government posts from 1970 until 2005, first as foreign minister and then vice president.
During this time, Assad’s regime routinely engaged in human rights violations and persecuted political opponents. Associated with the regime’s rampant corruption, Khaddam helped oversee Syria’s brutal occupation of Lebanon, which ended in 2005.
Florida-based businessman who pleaded guilty to bribing Venezuelan officials in order to win rigged bids for state contracts with Venezuela’s oil company PDVSA, together with his business partner Roberto Enrique Rincón Fernández.
Shiera was a beneficiary of seven Credit Suisse accounts. Three of which appeared to have remained open after his 2015 arrest.
A powerful official in the government of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, accused of embezzling billions of dollars during the two decades he spent as head of the state-run Organization for Development of Administrative Centers.
Ali Ibrahim Dabaiba held at least one Credit Suisse account during this period. It remained open until August 2012, months after Gaddafi was deposed. At least four of his family members and business associates also had accounts with the bank, some of which stayed open for several years after that. One joint account, held by Dabaiba’s son and a Costa Rican company, reached a maximum balance worth over 18 million Swiss francs.
A close associate of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, energy mogul Aleksin burst onto Belarus’ business scene in 2012, just after a cadre of senior oligarchs were sanctioned in response to the regime’s brutal crackdowns on political protest. Part of Aleksin’s fortune was stashed in Credit Suisse that same year.
In 2021, the European Union and United States finally blacklisted Aleksin as well, describing him as one of Lukashenko’s “wallets.”
Alubaf International Bank Tunis
Sanctioned
Tunisia
CHF 35,720,294
As subsidiary of the state-owned Libyan Arab Foreign Bank, Alubaf International Bank’s Tunisia branch was named in three rounds of U.S. sanctions.
The former head of Portuguese bank Banco Espirito Santo’s subsidiary in Angola, suspected of laundering funds from a $5.7-billion fraudulent loan scheme.
Sobrinho had a dozen corporate accounts with Credit Suisse, several of which stayed open until at least 2015, when he was already publicly known to be under investigation in Switzerland and Portugal.
A son of Azerbaijan’s former Minister of National Security, Eldar Mahmudov, who was dismissed from his post in 2015 after a spectacular fall from grace. Although Mahmudov worked as a government official for his entire career, his family controls a business and property empire across Europe worth over 100 million euros, a 2020 OCCRP investigation found.
In 2015, a few days after his father’s sacking, Anar Mahmudov closed his corporate bank account at Credit Suisse. A few months later, he also closed his personal account.
Anas Ahmed Nabih El-Fekky
Criminal
Egypt
CHF 3,045,763
A former information minister and key ally of deposed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Fekky’s foreign assets were targeted over allegations of corruption in the aftermath of the so-called Arab Spring. He was subsequently convicted by an Egyptian court for squandering state funds and sent to prison. After years of retrials and appeals, his conviction was upheld in March 2021.
Accused money launderer for Italy’s ‘Ndrangheta organized crime group.
Italian prosecutors believed Velardo, along with a convicted Irish Republican Army bomber, swindled investors in an Italian seaside development built by the ‘Ndrangheta. Another partner in the seized venture, named Jewel of the Sea, was a member of the ‘Ndrangheta’s powerful Morabito clan.
Armenia’s president until his abrupt resignation in January 2022, shortly before OCCRP member center Hetq revealed that he had secretly obtained citizenship in the Caribbean island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis.
Sarkissian began his political career in the 1990s, serving as Armenia’s first post-Soviet ambassador to the U.K. and, briefly, prime minister, before leaving politics to work as an adviser for multinational corporations including British Petroleum (BP) and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
On being reappointed ambassador to the U.K. in 2013, Sarkissian did not declare funds he held in a Credit Suisse account that was open between 2006 and 2016, as was required by law. He told OCCRP that he took on the role on a “pro bono” basis and so it was unclear whether the rules applied in such circumstances.
Bank Mellat
Sanctioned
Iran
CHF 95,039,964
The partially state-owned Iranian commercial Bank Mellat has been sanctioned by the U.S. for its role in supporting Iran’s nuclear proliferation program. Bank Mellat circumvented those sanctions and gained access to US dollar markets by hiding behind companies controlled by infamous Turkish-Iranian money launderer Reza Zarrab.
Bayartsogt Sangajav
Political
Mongolia
CHF 7,874,819
Former Mongolian finance minister, investigated in Switzerland for opening Credit Suisse bank accounts that received bribes from other Mongolian politicians, allegedly relating to an investment deal for major gold and copper mine, Oyu Tolgoi.
In 2020, Sangajav was reportedly convicted of taking kickbacks from the mining project and laundering the proceeds by a Mongolian court. He was reportedly sentenced to 10 years in prison, before being released last year.
Bo Stefan Sederholm
Criminal
Sweden
CHF 229,554
One of two Swedes who were reportedly jailed for life for violating Philippines’ human trafficking laws. The pair had run a cybersex den catering to foreigners in the tiny Philippine town of Kauswagan where online customers could watch livestreamed sex acts, often of an abusive nature.
A representative for Sederholm said Credit Suisse never froze his accounts and did not close them until 2013 when he was unable to provide due diligence material. Asked why Sederholm needed a Swiss account, they said that he was living in Thailand when it was opened, adding: “Can you please tell me if you would prefer to put your money in a Thai or Swiss bank?”
Bojan Krišto
Political
Serbia
CHF 1,938,267
The former manager of the Serbian state lottery and Deputy Prime Minister’s cabinet member, he is charged with embezzlement while serving as the director of Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport. He is accused of changing the company’s internal rulebook to allow salary increases, thus allowing himself to dish out excessive salaries and bonuses to himself and other management.
Krišto told OCCRP that the foreign funds were acquired before his state appointments, and partly before his birth, through his family’s business activities across Europe.
Branislav Bogićević
Investigated
Serbia
CHF 4,607,539
The manager of Minaqua, a bottled water brand that dominates almost a fifth of Serbia’s market. More than a century old, it was privatized in 1999 and his family became the majority shareholders. Ever since, he has faced trial numerous times for alleged economic crimes and fraud that have taken place at the company.
Carlos Eduardo Kauffman Ramírez
Criminal
Venezuela
CHF 8,868,204
U.S.-based businessman and former racecar driver convicted for his role in an elaborate plot to obscure the government of Venezuela as the source of a $800,000 cash contribution to the Argentine presidential campaign to then-candidate Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Dariga Nazarbayeva
Political
Kazakhstan
CHF 21,611,765
Eldest daughter of Kazakhstan’s authoritarian ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev. As well as performing opera, Nazarbayeva has founded her own political party and become an MP and deputy prime minister, as well as speaker of the Senate.
After Nazarbayeva’s husband was charged, intially with kidnapping and then later the murder of two executives at a bank he controlled in 2007, she and her son took over his stake, swelling her considerable fortune. In 2013, Forbes named her on its list of 50 richest Kazakhs with assets of US$595 million which included a major media holding.
Dragutin Pihler
Investigated
Serbia
CHF 2,047,442
Director of the Moscow office of the Serbian architectural firm Centroprojekt. He and other company officials were investigated by Serbian authorities for financial crime on suspicion that they embezzled 6.5 million euros. The scheme, which ran from 2005 to 2008, involved falsifying documents in order to redirect payments destined for Centroprojekt – at the time a state-owned firm – to an identically-named private firm incorporated by the suspects.
Pihler told OCCRP’s partner KRIK that the funds in his Swiss account are savings that he legally earned in Russia, and were deposited into a Credit Suisse investment account in order to accrue income on his capital.
Eduard Seidel
Criminal
Germany
CHF 54,535,616
The managing director for the Nigerian operation of German industrial conglomerate Siemens, which was fined a combined $1.34 billion for bribery in 2008. Over two decades Seidel bribed Nigerian officials in order to win contracts for Siemens.
Although allegations that he had been part of the Siemens bribery scandal in Nigeria were first reported in 2007, two of Seidel’s six accounts — both of which were jointly owned with his wife — remained open for at least almost 10 more years.
A longtime official who has served as mayor or deputy mayor of several cities in Azerbaijan and districts of its capital, Baku. He is currently Baku’s mayor. Azizov is known for a number of controversial actions, including using municipal funds to pay for extremely long cakes for President Ilham Aliyev’s birthday.
While Azizov was mayor of Ganja, a corporate bank account was opened at Credit Suisse of which he, his wife, and his daughter were beneficiaries. His son held power of attorney. It’s unclear what kind of company the family might have had, but Azerbaijani law prohibits state officials from engaging in business.
Gamal and Alaa Mubarak
Political
Egypt
CHF 277,220,932
Sons of Egypt’s long-ruling President Hosni Mubarak, the two brothers and their allies prospered from the liberalization of the country’s economy — a policy effort led by Gamal himself. After the Arab Spring revolt of 2011, the two were charged in multiple corruption cases, although many were later dropped.
Their lawyers told OCCRP that neither Swiss nor Egyptian investigations have found any evidence of suspicious activity in their Swiss assets.
A long-serving former chief of Yemen’s intelligence services and a key enforcer for former strongman leader Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Al-Qamish has been accused of overseeing abduction and torture as part of the U.S.’s extraordinary rendition program. Qamish’s official salary was estimated to be not more than $5,000 a month, but sources say he had “an open budget made up of millions of dollars” to spend as he pleased.”
A former ally of Pope Francis who made history as the first Vatican cardinal to be tried on criminal charges by a civil court. Nine others are also accused of crimes including extortion, embezzlement, money laundering and abuse of office. Prosecutors allege that the ring lost 350 million euros of church funds on a scandal-ridden London property venture, and also that Becciu funneled Vatican funds to his brothers’ businesses in Sardinia.
Court documents say this Credit Suisse account, which belonged to the Vatican and listed Becciu amongst its four signatories of the account, was used in the embezzlement. Becciu’s legal representatives declined to comment on the account and told OCCRP that the Cardinal will answer to the court. They added that his brothers’ business was a charity, and maintained his innocence.
“Correction: This profile has been corrected to clarify that the account was state-owned and that the charges were filed against others.”
Gulrukh Tillyaeva
Political
Uzbekistan
CHF 2,226,946
An aunt of Timur Tillyaev, whose wife Lola Karimova is the daughter of Uzbekistan’s former dictatorial president Islam Karimov. Tillyaeva shares her Credit Suisse account with Nikita Kalinichenko, who media reports say was her husband and ran Abu Sahiy, one of the largest trading centers in Central Asia, as a frontman for Tillyaev.
Former Nigerian spy chief, presidential and vice-presidential aspirant, and close associate of corrupt military dictator Sani Abacha. Shinkafi’s son-in-law, Atiku Bagudu, also served as a key money launderer for the Abacha family, according to U.S. prosecutors.
A close associate of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, energy mogul Aleksin burst onto Belarus’ business scene in 2012, just after a cadre of senior oligarchs were sanctioned in response to the regime’s brutal crackdowns on political protest. Part of Aleksin’s fortune was stashed in Credit Suisse that same year.
In 2021, the European Union and United States finally blacklisted Aleksin as well, describing him as one of Lukashenko’s “wallets.”
Accused money launderer for Italy’s ‘Ndrangheta organized crime group.
Italian prosecutors believed Velardo, along with a convicted Irish Republican Army bomber, swindled investors in an Italian seaside development built by the ‘Ndrangheta. Another partner in the seized venture, named Jewel of the Sea, was a member of the ‘Ndrangheta’s powerful Morabito clan.
Bo Stefan Sederholm
Criminal
Sweden
CHF 229,554
Description
One of two Swedes who were reportedly jailed for life for violating Philippines’ human trafficking laws. The pair had run a cybersex den catering to foreigners in the tiny Philippine town of Kauswagan where online customers could watch livestreamed sex acts, often of an abusive nature.
A representative for Sederholm said Credit Suisse never froze his accounts and did not close them until 2013 when he was unable to provide due diligence material. Asked why Sederholm needed a Swiss account, they said that he was living in Thailand when it was opened, adding: “Can you please tell me if you would prefer to put your money in a Thai or Swiss bank?”
Bojan Krišto
Political
Serbia
CHF 1,938,267
Description
The former manager of the Serbian state lottery and Deputy Prime Minister’s cabinet member, he is charged with embezzlement while serving as the director of Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport. He is accused of changing the company’s internal rulebook to allow salary increases, thus allowing himself to dish out excessive salaries and bonuses to himself and other management.
Krišto told OCCRP that the foreign funds were acquired before his state appointments, and partly before his birth, through his family’s business activities across Europe.
Branislav Bogićević
Investigated
Serbia
CHF 4,607,539
Description
The manager of Minaqua, a bottled water brand that dominates almost a fifth of Serbia’s market. More than a century old, it was privatized in 1999 and his family became the majority shareholders. Ever since, he has faced trial numerous times for alleged economic crimes and fraud that have taken place at the company.
Dragutin Pihler
Investigated
Serbia
CHF 2,047,442
Director of the Moscow office of the Serbian architectural firm Centroprojekt. He and other company officials were investigated by Serbian authorities for financial crime on suspicion that they embezzled 6.5 million euros. The scheme, which ran from 2005 to 2008, involved falsifying documents in order to redirect payments destined for Centroprojekt – at the time a state-owned firm – to an identically-named private firm incorporated by the suspects.
Pihler told OCCRP’s partner KRIK that the funds in his Swiss account are savings that he legally earned in Russia, and were deposited into a Credit Suisse investment account in order to accrue income on his capital.
Eduard Seidel
Criminal
Germany
CHF 54,535,616
Description
The managing director for the Nigerian operation of German industrial conglomerate Siemens, which was fined a combined $1.34 billion for bribery in 2008. Over two decades Seidel bribed Nigerian officials in order to win contracts for Siemens.
Although allegations that he had been part of the Siemens bribery scandal in Nigeria were first reported in 2007, two of Seidel’s six accounts — both of which were jointly owned with his wife — remained open for at least almost 10 more years.
Giovanni Angelo Becciu
Investigated
Vatican City
CHF 252,918,387
Description
A former ally of Pope Francis who made history as the first Vatican cardinal to be tried on criminal charges by a civil court. Nine others are also accused of crimes including extortion, embezzlement, money laundering and abuse of office. Prosecutors allege that the ring lost 350 million euros of church funds on a scandal-ridden London property venture, and also that Becciu funneled Vatican funds to his brothers’ businesses in Sardinia.
Court documents say this Credit Suisse account, which belonged to the Vatican and listed Becciu amongst its four signatories of the account, was used in the embezzlement. Becciu’s legal representatives declined to comment on the account and told OCCRP that the Cardinal will answer to the court. They added that his brothers’ business was a charity, and maintained his innocence.
“Correction: This profile has been corrected to clarify that the account was state-owned and that the charges were filed against others.”
Hélder Bataglia dos Santos
Investigated
Portugal
CHF 42,167,683
Description
Counting presidents from Africa to Latin America amongst his friends, this Portuguese businessman based in Angola billed his venture Escom as a point of contact for nations and international entities looking to invest in Africa. With success has come scrutiny, in several corruption probes across Europe. He is also a close associate of Álvaro Sobrinho, suspected of laundering money while serving as head of an Escom-linked bank in Angola.
According to Portuguese newspaper Expresso, the pair shared a company engaged in $1.6 billion worth of irregular transactions and loans. They also shared three accounts at Credit Suisse.
Bataglia told OCCRP that he had closed all of his accounts with Credit Suisse by 2021, but denied having shared accounts with Sobrinho.
Janko Jovanović
Investigated
Bosnia and Herzegovina
CHF 1,681,480
Description
The head of the customs office in the border town of Brod was placed under investigation and detained for corruption in connection to a crime ring that included the customs authorities.
According to the state prosecutor, the scheme to fake invoices of imports into Bosnia and Herzegovina cost the state budget 153 million euros. The alleged scheme ran all the way to the top of the national tax authority.
Rodoljub Radulović
Criminal
Serbia
CHF 3,393,470
Description
The head of the customs office in the border town of Brod was placed under investigation and detained for corruption in connection to a crime ring that included the customs authorities.
According to the state prosecutor, the scheme to fake invoices of imports into Bosnia and Herzegovina cost the state budget 153 million euros. The alleged scheme ran all the way to the top of the national tax authority.
Ivan.Guta&The Guta family
Investigated
Ukraine
CHF 222,878,343
Description
The Gutas ran one of Ukraine’s largest grain producers, but orchestrated its collapse by funneling at least $100 million out of the company and into offshore firms they controlled. Ivan Guta and his wife, Klavdiya, founded Mriya Agro Holding Public Limited in 1992, and their two sons, Andriy and Mykola, joined later.
By 2012 Mriya was managing close to 300,000 hectares of agricultural land. Two years later, the company had run out of cash, leaving creditors sitting on claims exceeding 1 billion euros.
Between them, Ivan, Klavdiya, Andriy and Mykola Guta were listed as account holders of a total of 16 Credit Suisse accounts.
Vugar Abbasov
Political
Azerbaijan
CHF 7,955,738
Description
President of Cahan Holding, a major conglomerate in the Autonomous Republic of Nakhchivan in Azerbaijan. For years rumors have swirled that the company is controlled by the family of Vasif Talibov, who has ruled the enclave with an iron fist for nearly three decades.
In 2008, Abassov founded a bank with several members of the Talibov family. The following year, he opened a Credit Suisse account that received transfers from shell companies which were used in major “laundromat” fraud schemes previously discovered by OCCRP.
An electricity mogul who converted his experience at the helm of Yugoslavian state energy firms into a personal fortune after the country’s dissolution, trading energy and debt between the newly formed regional utilities through his business group, Energy Financing Team (EFT). Although Hamović was never charged with a crime, his business has drawn the attention of prosecutors and investigators in multiple countries.
Leaked emails reveal how Hunter Biden was desperate to avoid jail for unpaid taxes – after blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury cars, prostitutes, drugs and designer clothing.
The bombshell cache of 103,000 text messages, 154,000 emails, more than 2,000 photos and dozens of videos from Hunter’s laptop and authenticated by experts retained by DailyMail.com are packed with revelations conveniently missing from his newly published memoir, Beautiful Things.
The pictures, documents, emails and texts reveal that despite reporting more than $6 million of income from 2013 to 2016, Hunter’s bacchanalian expenses left him with huge debts to credit card companies and the tax man.
When his ambitious business deals fell through and federal investigations began to close in on the President’s son, he wrote in an email he was concerned he ‘could go to jail’ and even threatened to take money out of his daughter’s education savings account.
The documents show that as well as keeping luxury cars including a 2014 Porsche, an Audi, a 2018 Ford Raptor Truck, an $80,000 boat, a Range Rover, Land Rover, BMW and Chevrolet Truck, Hunter also spent thousands of dollars on strippers and suspected prostitutes.
True Information is the most valuable resource and we ask you kindly to give back.
🇮🇱 “IT HAS DISAPPEARED”: THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT CLAIMS TO HAVE LOST THE AGREEMENT WITH PFIZER on COVID-19 VACCINES!
The Israeli government has just indicated in court that it cannot find the contracts under which the experimental COVID-19 mRNA injections were performed.
The Israeli Ministry of Health revealed on Wednesday (Dec. 14): “We cannot find the signed agreement with Pfizer. It has disappeared.”
“We have not found the signed agreement. We searched everywhere.”
“Due to the change of government, we are not sure whether an agreement has been signed or not
SOME PEOPLE WANT to SAVE THEIR SKIN.
NO AMNESTY NO MERCY NO DEALS
Leaked Government Big Pharma Vaccine Contracts, WORLDWIDE WITH ALL PHARMA COMPANIES
Leaked emails reveal how Hunter Biden was desperate to avoid jail for unpaid taxes – after blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury cars, prostitutes, drugs and designer clothing.
The bombshell cache of 103,000 text messages, 154,000 emails, more than 2,000 photos and dozens of videos from Hunter’s laptop and authenticated by experts retained by DailyMail.com are packed with revelations conveniently missing from his newly published memoir, Beautiful Things.
The pictures, documents, emails and texts reveal that despite reporting more than $6 million of income from 2013 to 2016, Hunter’s bacchanalian expenses left him with huge debts to credit card companies and the tax man.
When his ambitious business deals fell through and federal investigations began to close in on the President’s son, he wrote in an email he was concerned he ‘could go to jail’ and even threatened to take money out of his daughter’s education savings account.
The documents show that as well as keeping luxury cars including a 2014 Porsche, an Audi, a 2018 Ford Raptor Truck, an $80,000 boat, a Range Rover, Land Rover, BMW and Chevrolet Truck, Hunter also spent thousands of dollars on strippers and suspected prostitutes.
True Information is the most valuable resource and we ask you kindly to give back.
🇮🇱 “IT HAS DISAPPEARED”: THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT CLAIMS TO HAVE LOST THE AGREEMENT WITH PFIZER on COVID-19 VACCINES!
The Israeli government has just indicated in court that it cannot find the contracts under which the experimental COVID-19 mRNA injections were performed.
The Israeli Ministry of Health revealed on Wednesday (Dec. 14): “We cannot find the signed agreement with Pfizer. It has disappeared.”
“We have not found the signed agreement. We searched everywhere.”
“Due to the change of government, we are not sure whether an agreement has been signed or not
SOME PEOPLE WANT to SAVE THEIR SKIN.
NO AMNESTY NO MERCY NO DEALS
Leaked Government Big Pharma Vaccine Contracts, WORLDWIDE WITH ALL PHARMA COMPANIES
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Leaked emails reveal how Hunter Biden was desperate to avoid jail for unpaid taxes – after blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury cars, prostitutes, drugs and designer clothing.
The bombshell cache of 103,000 text messages, 154,000 emails, more than 2,000 photos and dozens of videos from Hunter’s laptop and authenticated by experts retained by DailyMail.com are packed with revelations conveniently missing from his newly published memoir, Beautiful Things.
The pictures, documents, emails and texts reveal that despite reporting more than $6 million of income from 2013 to 2016, Hunter’s bacchanalian expenses left him with huge debts to credit card companies and the tax man.
When his ambitious business deals fell through and federal investigations began to close in on the President’s son, he wrote in an email he was concerned he ‘could go to jail’ and even threatened to take money out of his daughter’s education savings account.
The documents show that as well as keeping luxury cars including a 2014 Porsche, an Audi, a 2018 Ford Raptor Truck, an $80,000 boat, a Range Rover, Land Rover, BMW and Chevrolet Truck, Hunter also spent thousands of dollars on strippers and suspected prostitutes.
Leaked emails reveal how Hunter Biden was desperate to avoid jail for unpaid taxes – after blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury cars, prostitutes, drugs and designer clothing.
The bombshell cache of 103,000 text messages, 154,000 emails, more than 2,000 photos and dozens of videos from Hunter’s laptop and authenticated by experts retained by DailyMail.com are packed with revelations conveniently missing from his newly published memoir, Beautiful Things.
The pictures, documents, emails and texts reveal that despite reporting more than $6 million of income from 2013 to 2016, Hunter’s bacchanalian expenses left him with huge debts to credit card companies and the tax man.
When his ambitious business deals fell through and federal investigations began to close in on the President’s son, he wrote in an email he was concerned he ‘could go to jail’ and even threatened to take money out of his daughter’s education savings account.
The documents show that as well as keeping luxury cars including a 2014 Porsche, an Audi, a 2018 Ford Raptor Truck, an $80,000 boat, a Range Rover, Land Rover, BMW and Chevrolet Truck, Hunter also spent thousands of dollars on strippers and suspected prostitutes.
Leaked emails reveal how Hunter Biden was desperate to avoid jail for unpaid taxes – after blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury cars, prostitutes, drugs and designer clothing.
The bombshell cache of 103,000 text messages, 154,000 emails, more than 2,000 photos and dozens of videos from Hunter’s laptop and authenticated by experts retained by DailyMail.com are packed with revelations conveniently missing from his newly published memoir, Beautiful Things.
The pictures, documents, emails and texts reveal that despite reporting more than $6 million of income from 2013 to 2016, Hunter’s bacchanalian expenses left him with huge debts to credit card companies and the tax man.
When his ambitious business deals fell through and federal investigations began to close in on the President’s son, he wrote in an email he was concerned he ‘could go to jail’ and even threatened to take money out of his daughter’s education savings account.
The documents show that as well as keeping luxury cars including a 2014 Porsche, an Audi, a 2018 Ford Raptor Truck, an $80,000 boat, a Range Rover, Land Rover, BMW and Chevrolet Truck, Hunter also spent thousands of dollars on strippers and suspected prostitutes.
On February 24, 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order 14017 on America’s Supply Chains directing the Secretary of Energy to submit a supply chain strategy overview report for the energy sector industrial base (as determined by the Secretary of Energy). The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) defines the Energy Sector Industrial Base (ESIB) as the energy sector and associated supply chains that include all industries/companies and stakeholders directly and indirectly involved in the energy sector. The energy sector industrial base involves a complex network of industries and stakeholders that spans from extractive industries, manufacturing industries, energy conversion and delivery industries, end of life and waste management industries, and service industries to include providers of digital goods and services.
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ICIJ reports: “The Kinahan drug cartel emerged in Dublin and now has strong ties to Spain, Morocco, Dubai, Colombia and Russia. It’s flooded Europe with narcotics, including heroin, ecstasy, marijuana from North Africa and cocaine from South America.
But the gang has seen few repercussions outside Ireland. Suspected leader Daniel Kinahan has enjoyed an active public life, managing some of the world’s premier boxers and mingling with royals and politicians while making a new home in Dubai.
That’s all started to change this month. After new U.S. sanctions targeted the Kinahan family, the UAE says it’s frozen their assets, and MTK Global, a high-profile boxing company co-founded by Daniel Kinahan, has ceased operations.
THIS IS AN EXCERPT – YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THIS INFO IN FULL LENGTH UNREDACTED, OUR FULL VIDEOS, OUR FULL DOCUMENT AND MUCH MORE FOR FREE AT OUR TELEGRAM CHANNEL
Leaked emails reveal how Hunter Biden was desperate to avoid jail for unpaid taxes – after blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury cars, prostitutes, drugs and designer clothing.
The bombshell cache of 103,000 text messages, 154,000 emails, more than 2,000 photos and dozens of videos from Hunter’s laptop and authenticated by experts retained by DailyMail.com are packed with revelations conveniently missing from his newly published memoir, Beautiful Things.
The pictures, documents, emails and texts reveal that despite reporting more than $6 million of income from 2013 to 2016, Hunter’s bacchanalian expenses left him with huge debts to credit card companies and the tax man.
When his ambitious business deals fell through and federal investigations began to close in on the President’s son, he wrote in an email he was concerned he ‘could go to jail’ and even threatened to take money out of his daughter’s education savings account.
The documents show that as well as keeping luxury cars including a 2014 Porsche, an Audi, a 2018 Ford Raptor Truck, an $80,000 boat, a Range Rover, Land Rover, BMW and Chevrolet Truck, Hunter also spent thousands of dollars on strippers and suspected prostitutes.
From: no data
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2022 04:52:54 -0800
Subject: [cryptome] wholeaked - a new open source program to catch whistle blowers
To: cryptome@freelists.org
this post is an attempt to get this list back to the roots of what
cryptome is based on: leaked files. I attempt to share an interesting
coder, the coders shared work in his github and what is his most
interesting creation yet called wholeaked in hopes of drumming up
interesting discussions on leakers and related software, and hopefully
we can leave behind some of the insane and inane discussions of recent
history on this list.
Ill first go over his github and the various projects he created and
the skills/languages he used to create the tools and then go onto
wholeaked, what it does, a brief explanation on how it does what it
does, its uses, its shortfalls and why its an interesting and
important addition to those who are for and/or against leaks and/or
leakers (it helps and works against both leakers and anti-leakers
both). Lets begin.
the original Developer of this code quote about the project he named
"wholeaked":
"a file-sharing tool that allows you to find the responsible person in
case of a leakage"
The github project page has 19 forks, uses the BSD-3-Clause License
and was created on January 26th, 2022 appears to be made by a talented
hacker named Utku Sen who's written other pro-privacy and published
them on github such as his "house party" emergency data locker tool
that encrypts every file in your home directory via remote command in
an attempt to block a thief's access to your documents, as well as
several anti-ransomware tools that detect when encrypting of files has
begun and stops the process and warns you as soon as it sees it
happening. A re-write of the program was done to have the code
available in python.
His other open source tools include:
-several DoS tools,
-a url-shortener reversal tool,
-a fork of "empire" windows exploit toolkit for automated pwning of
windows domain controllers,
-an IRC based botnet/bot tool,
-a second fork of Empire with modifications to timing and order of
loading is functions for IDS evasion,
-a stresstester
-a program called jeopardize; a threat intelligence&response tool
against phishing domains
-and a mass-security-auditing toolkit
-a blackjack analyzer
-other interesting hack tools.
The languages he uses to create these tools spans across various major
languages from C to python to visual basic to c# and finally Go. His
repos can be found here: https://github.com/utkusen?tab=repositories
While the method this program uses is not brand new the program itself
is and it is more than a simple single functioning binary with only
one function..., it crosses platforms to every major 64 bit OS (linux
x64, macOSX x64and windows x64) which makes this program all the
more versatile to use
Classification of program type:
The program might be whats known as a type of "traitor tracing"
software (see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitor_tracing )
..and uses a canary trap to finger the leaker (see here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_trap )..
..... some might be offended by such strong labels such as 'traitor'
to describe this software, as the word "traitor" could be replaced
with "brave unwavering ethical bar-setting/bar-raising whistleblower
hero" and the functionality of the software would be the exact same
even if the intent is different.
...., the program helps you keep track of everyone who gets a copy of
the file that you suspect will be leaked (or you might do this as a
form of anti-copying enforcement in hopes of distributing the book
with consequences of getting fired from their job, fined or
imprisoned. Each copy that gets sent out gets its own unique invisible
watermark which is essentially just metadata that ties that particular
copy to the email address (or person) who you sent it too.
When the file or files get leaked (or if it gets leaked) then you can
check the metadata in the copy of the now public file and see which
person the watermarks show that it was tied to, and then you've just
found your leaker.
Here are the several ways you are able to tag the file (copied
directly from the github here: https://github.com/utkusen/wholeaked )
"wholeaked can add the unique signature to different sections of a
file. Available detection modes are given below:
File Hash: SHA256 hash of the file. All file types are supported.
Binary: The signature is directly added to the binary. Almost all file
types are supported.
Metadata: The signature is added to a metadata section of a file.
Supported file types: PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, MOV, JPG, PNG, GIF, EPS,
AI, PSD
Watermark: An invisible signature is inserted into the text. Only PDF
files are supported."
A note of caution: Of course this tool will only reveal the most
inexperienced and/or over confident of leakers, as anyone with half a
brain will realize, 19th attempt to strip all metadata from the file
before leaking, if not altogether re-creating the document with
screenshotting each page of data one at a time with something like the
good old printscreen button and pasting and saving in ms paint or
something similar, One should consider using a brand new VM that was
spun up for this single purpose or a live linux distro like ubuntu
live or tails will also work (those who work in digital forensics are
much better to discuss this part of the topic!)
This is but one way to by-pass someone using a
unique-injection-of-watermark-per-file leak-detection technique (try
saying that 5x fast!). among other methods,
The _actual_ common term of this technique is called the canary trap
for the laymen, It is actually used in many different contexts that
are much different than someone breaching national security with PDF
files or whatever, like for example, some AV programs use canary files
that are placed in your documents folder and if the AV detects that
they are no longer accessible (yet still remain in your documents
folder) or if they appear to be modified, then the AV might cause all
processes to stop and block any processes from writing to disk until
the user either lets the processes continue after confirming that it
was not ransomware that modified, encrypted or changed the file.
Wholeaked is essentially making every distributed file its own unique
identifiable canary. If that canary is ever found anywhere by being
leaked, then at the very least you will know who was responsible for
the file becoming public (if it was their intent on spreading the file
to the public or not!).
What makes this one note-worthy is that it is now trivial to do it
easily without the need to understand concepts like unique
watermarking and metadata or how to add them correctly. Also that it
is open source with compiled binaries for windows, OSX and linux (you
can find the project, binaries and source code on github here:
https://github.com/utkusen/wholeaked/releases/tag/v0.1.0 )
Its a reminder to those who are experienced in leaking to stay
vigilant , less they be exposed (and in some states/places this could
mean death or worse to you and your family).
Its also a wakeup call for those who leak who dont know what they are
doing , and might mean lost jobs, legal action, imprisonment and
possibly a lot more if they don't smarten up about their opsec.
On the other hand, it could also mean the capture of those who are
leaking classified documents to rogue states who routinely deny
mountains of evidence of human rights abuses (im looking at you China)
for money, in which case, it would be a good thing exposing those who
give aid to powerful unethical monsors.
No matter the use case, the tool is now in the hands of everyone and
anyone is free to add and change it for their own uses and publish
their own versions as a fork if they like.
To end this post which has gone on far too long, here is the creators home page:
https://utkusen.com/
kudos you, Utkusen!
SOURCE: CRYPTOME
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Leaked documents of the Ministry of Defense of 🇺🇦#Ukraine , with summary data on🇺🇸#US military assistance, Western military supplies to Ukraine in the period 2014-2021, as well as at beginning of 2022
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To all the corrupt powers within governments: I bear you personally ill will. You are merely a product of the system within which you are ensnared. You had a chance to get out but you stayed – Remember there is not a single misdeed in your life that I will not uncover and make public. Doubt me at your risk.
The weapon of choice for the forces of light is the TRUTH. For the forces of darkness it is LIES. Truth always wins because the support structures necessary for maintaining a lie always collapse, and the truth is it’s own support. .
I have documents to BLACKMAIL the Democrats and I will post them here on my channel. The file will be encrypted and the PASSWORD will be PUBLISHED after the FINAL COUNTDOWN. In the meantime SHARE this with everyone you know!
PREPARE BACKUPS. ARCHIVE EVERYTHING. THE END IS NEAR!
“A 2.94 terabyte data trove exposes the offshore secrets of wealthy elites from more than 200 countries and territories. These are people who use tax and secrecy havens to buy property and hide assets; many avoid taxes and worse. They include more than 330 politicians and 130 Forbes billionaires, as well as celebrities, fraudsters, drug dealers, royal family members and leaders of religious groups around the world.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists spent more than a year structuring, researching and analyzing the more than 11.9 million records in the Pandora Papers leak. The task involved three main elements: journalists, technology and time.
What is the Pandora Papers?
The Pandora Papers investigation is the world’s largest-ever journalistic collaboration, involving more than 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries.
The investigation is based on a leak of confidential records of 14 offshore service providers that give professional services to wealthy individuals and corporations seeking to incorporate shell companies, trusts, foundations and other entities in low- or no-tax jurisdictions. The entities enable owners to conceal their identities from the public and sometimes from regulators. Often, the providers help them open bank accounts in countries with light financial regulation.
The 2.94 terabytes of data, leaked to ICIJ and shared with media partners around the world, arrived in various formats: as documents, images, emails, spreadsheets, and more.
The records include an unprecedented amount of information on so-called beneficial owners of entities registered in the British Virgin Islands, Seychelles, Hong Kong, Belize, Panama, South Dakota and other secrecy jurisdictions. They also contain information on the shareholders, directors and officers. In addition to the rich, the famous and the infamous, those exposed by the leak include people who don’t represent a public interest and who don’t appear in our reporting, such as small business owners, doctors and other, usually affluent, individuals away from the public spotlight.
While some of the files date to the 1970s, most of those reviewed by ICIJ were created between 1996 and 2020. They cover a wide range of matters: the creation of shell companies, foundations and trusts; the use of such entities to purchase real estate, yachts, jets and life insurance; their use to make investments and to move money between bank accounts; estate planning and other inheritance issues; and the avoidance of taxes through complex financial schemes. Some documents are tied to financial crimes, including money laundering.
What’s in the Pandora Papers?
The more than 330 politicians exposed by the leak were from more than 90 countries and territories. They used entities in secrecy jurisdictions to buy real estate, hold money in trust, own other companies and other assets, sometimes anonymously.
The Pandora Papers investigation also reveals how banks and law firms work closely with offshore service providers to design complex corporate structures. The files show that providers don’t always know their customers, despite their legal obligation to take care not to do business with people who engage in questionable dealings.
The investigation also reports on how U.S. trust providers have taken advantage of some states’ laws that promote secrecy and help wealthy overseas clients hide wealth to avoid taxes in their home countries.
What form did the data come in?
The 11.9 million-plus records were largely unstructured. More than half of the files (6.4 million) were text documents, including more than 4 million PDFs, some of which ran to more than 10,000-pages. The documents included passports, bank statements, tax declarations, company incorporation records, real estate contracts and due diligence questionnaires. There were also more than 4.1 million images and emails in the leak.
Spreadsheets made up 4% of the documents, or more than 467,000. The records also included slide shows and audio and video files.
What’s in the Pandora Papers leak?
What’s different about this leak from others we’ve heard about?
The Pandora Papers information – the 2.94 terabytes in more than 11.9 million records – comes from 14 providers that offer services in at least 38 jurisdictions. The 2016 Panama Papers investigation was based on 2.6 terabytes of data in 11.5 million documents from a single provider, the now-defunct Mossack Fonseca law firm. The 2017 Paradise Papers investigation was based on a leak of 1.4 terabytes in more than 13.4 million files from one offshore law firm, Appleby, as well as Asiaciti Trust, a Singapore-based provider, and government corporate registries in 19 secrecy jurisdictions.
The Pandora Papers presented a new challenge because the 14 providers had different ways of presenting and organizing information. Some organized documents by client, some by various offices, and others had no apparent system at all. A single document sometimes contained years’ worth of emails and attachments. Some providers digitized their records and structured them in spreadsheets; others kept paper files that were scanned. Some PDFs contained spreadsheets that had to be reconstructed into spreadsheets. The documents arrived in English, Spanish, Russian, French, Arabic, Korean and other languages, requiring extensive coordination among ICIJ partners.
The Pandora Papers gathered information on more than 27,000 companies and 29,000 so-called ultimate beneficial owners from 11 of the providers, or more than twice the number of beneficial owners identified in the Panama Papers.
The Pandora Papers connected offshore activity to more than twice as many politicians and public officials as did the Panama Papers. And the Pandora Papers’ more than 330 politicians and public officials, from more than 90 countries and territories , included 35 current and former country leaders.
The new leak also includes information on jurisdictions not explored in previous ICIJ projects or for which there was little data, such as Belize, Cyprus and South Dakota.
The legal entities in the files of six providers – the companies, foundations and trusts – were all registered between 1971 and 2018. The records show providers and clients shifting their business from one jurisdiction to another after investigations and resulting rule changes.
How did you explore the files?
Only 4% of the files were structured, with data organized in tables (spreadsheets, csv files and a few “dbf files”).
To explore and analyze the information in the Pandora Papers, ICIJ identified files that contained beneficial ownership information by company and jurisdiction and structured it accordingly. Each provider’s data required a different process.
In cases where information came in spreadsheet form, ICIJ removed duplicates and combined it into a master spreadsheet. For PDF or document files, ICIJ used programming languages such as Python to automate data extraction and structuring as much as possible.
In more complex cases, ICIJ used machine learning and other tools, including the Fonduer and Scikit-learn softwares, to identify and separate specific forms from longer documents.
Some provider forms were handwritten, requiring ICIJ to extract information manually.
Once information was extracted and structured, ICIJ generated lists that linked beneficial owners to the companies they owned in specific jurisdictions. In some cases, information about where or when a company was registered wasn’t available. In others, information was missing about when a person or an entity had become the owner of the company, among other details.
After structuring the data, ICIJ used graphic platforms (Neo4J and Linkurious) to generate visualizations and make them searchable. This allowed reporters to explore connections between people and companies across providers.
A2.94 terabyte data trove exposes the offshore secrets of wealthy elites from more than 200 countries and territories. These are people who use tax and secrecy havens to buy property and hide assets; many avoid taxes and worse. They include more than 330 politicians and 130 Forbes billionaires, as well as celebrities, fraudsters, drug dealers, royal family members and leaders of religious groups around the world.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists spent more than a year structuring, researching and analyzing the more than 11.9 million records in the Pandora Papers leak. The task involved three main elements: journalists, technology and time.
What is the Pandora Papers?
The Pandora Papers investigation is the world’s largest-ever journalistic collaboration, involving more than 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries.
The investigation is based on a leak of confidential records of 14 offshore service providers that give professional services to wealthy individuals and corporations seeking to incorporate shell companies, trusts, foundations and other entities in low- or no-tax jurisdictions. The entities enable owners to conceal their identities from the public and sometimes from regulators. Often, the providers help them open bank accounts in countries with light financial regulation.
The 2.94 terabytes of data, leaked to ICIJ and shared with media partners around the world, arrived in various formats: as documents, images, emails, spreadsheets, and more.
The records include an unprecedented amount of information on so-called beneficial owners of entities registered in the British Virgin Islands, Seychelles, Hong Kong, Belize, Panama, South Dakota and other secrecy jurisdictions. They also contain information on the shareholders, directors and officers. In addition to the rich, the famous and the infamous, those exposed by the leak include people who don’t represent a public interest and who don’t appear in our reporting, such as small business owners, doctors and other, usually affluent, individuals away from the public spotlight.
While some of the files date to the 1970s, most of those reviewed by ICIJ were created between 1996 and 2020. They cover a wide range of matters: the creation of shell companies, foundations and trusts; the use of such entities to purchase real estate, yachts, jets and life insurance; their use to make investments and to move money between bank accounts; estate planning and other inheritance issues; and the avoidance of taxes through complex financial schemes. Some documents are tied to financial crimes, including money laundering.
Donate today and help us inspire and cultivate a global community of reporters and readers who believe journalism can bring about positive change.
What’s in the Pandora Papers?
The more than 330 politicians exposed by the leak were from more than 90 countries and territories. They used entities in secrecy jurisdictions to buy real estate, hold money in trust, own other companies and other assets, sometimes anonymously.
The Pandora Papers investigation also reveals how banks and law firms work closely with offshore service providers to design complex corporate structures. The files show that providers don’t always know their customers, despite their legal obligation to take care not to do business with people who engage in questionable dealings.
The investigation also reports on how U.S. trust providers have taken advantage of some states’ laws that promote secrecy and help wealthy overseas clients hide wealth to avoid taxes in their home countries.
What form did the data come in?
The 11.9 million-plus records were largely unstructured. More than half of the files (6.4 million) were text documents, including more than 4 million PDFs, some of which ran to more than 10,000-pages. The documents included passports, bank statements, tax declarations, company incorporation records, real estate contracts and due diligence questionnaires. There were also more than 4.1 million images and emails in the leak.
What’s different about this leak from others we’ve heard about?
The Pandora Papers information – the 2.94 terabytes in more than 11.9 million records – comes from 14 providers that offer services in at least 38 jurisdictions. The 2016 Panama Papers investigation was based on 2.6 terabytes of data in 11.5 million documents from a single provider, the now-defunct Mossack Fonseca law firm. The 2017 Paradise Papers investigation was based on a leak of 1.4 terabytes in more than 13.4 million files from one offshore law firm, Appleby, as well as Asiaciti Trust, a Singapore-based provider, and government corporate registries in 19 secrecy jurisdictions.
The Pandora Papers presented a new challenge because the 14 providers had different ways of presenting and organizing information. Some organized documents by client, some by various offices, and others had no apparent system at all. A single document sometimes contained years’ worth of emails and attachments. Some providers digitized their records and structured them in spreadsheets; others kept paper files that were scanned. Some PDFs contained spreadsheets that had to be reconstructed into spreadsheets. The documents arrived in English, Spanish, Russian, French, Arabic, Korean and other languages, requiring extensive coordination among ICIJ partners.
The Pandora Papers gathered information on more than 27,000 companies and 29,000 so-called ultimate beneficial owners from 11 of the providers, or more than twice the number of beneficial owners identified in the Panama Papers.
The new leak also includes information on jurisdictions not explored in previous ICIJ projects or for which there was little data, such as Belize, Cyprus and South Dakota.
The legal entities in the files of six providers – the companies, foundations and trusts – were all registered between 1971 and 2018. The records show providers and clients shifting their business from one jurisdiction to another after investigations and resulting rule changes.
How did you explore the files?
Only 4% of the files were structured, with data organized in tables (spreadsheets, csv files and a few “dbf files”).
To explore and analyze the information in the Pandora Papers, ICIJ identified files that contained beneficial ownership information by company and jurisdiction and structured it accordingly. Each provider’s data required a different process.
In cases where information came in spreadsheet form, ICIJ removed duplicates and combined it into a master spreadsheet. For PDF or document files, ICIJ used programming languages such as Python to automate data extraction and structuring as much as possible.
In more complex cases, ICIJ used machine learning and other tools, including the Fonduer and Scikit-learn softwares, to identify and separate specific forms from longer documents.
Some provider forms were handwritten, requiring ICIJ to extract information manually.
Once information was extracted and structured, ICIJ generated lists that linked beneficial owners to the companies they owned in specific jurisdictions. In some cases, information about where or when a company was registered wasn’t available. In others, information was missing about when a person or an entity had become the owner of the company, among other details.
After structuring the data, ICIJ used graphic platforms (Neo4J and Linkurious) to generate visualizations and make them searchable. This allowed reporters to explore connections between people and companies across providers.
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To identify potential story subjects in the data, ICIJ matched information in the leak against other data sets: sanctions lists, previous leaks, public corporate records, media lists of billionaires and public lists of political leaders.
ICIJ’s partner in Sweden, SVT, generated spreadsheets containing data extracted from passports found in the Pandora Papers.
ICIJ shared records with media partners using Datashare, a secure research and analytical tool developed by ICIJ’s technical team. Datashare’s batch-search function helped reporters match some public figures with the data.
The leak contains routine documents that service providers gather for due diligence – news articles, Wikipedia entries, information from financial data provider World-Check – that don’t necessarily confirm whether a person is hiding wealth in a secrecy jurisdiction. ICIJ used machine learning to tag such files in Datashare, enabling reporters to exclude them from their searches.
Our 150 media partners shared tips, leads and other information of interest using ICIJ’s global I-Hub, a secure social media and messaging platform. Throughout the project, ICIJ held extensive training sessions for partners on the use of ICIJ technology to explore, mine and better understand the files.
What did you research and how did you organize it?
Having identified documents that contained information on the owners of offshore entities and structured the information by provider, ICIJ unified the data in a centralized database.
This provided ICIJ and its media partners with a unique data set of beneficial owners of companies in secrecy jurisdictions.
ICIJ eliminated duplications in the data and identified key elements, such as nationality of the owner, country of residence and place of birth. This enabled us to find, for instance, nearly 3,700 companies with more than 4,400 beneficiaries who were Russian nationals – the most among all nationalities in the data. The figure includes 46 Russian oligarchs.
ICIJ also researched and analyzed the use of U.S. trusts, using keyword searches and matches with public data, among other methods.
As a result, ICIJ identified more than 200 trusts settled, or created, in the U.S from 2000 to 2019, with the largest number registered in South Dakota. The trusts were connected with people from 40 countries (not including the U.S.). ICIJ identified assets in single trusts worth between $67,000 and $165 million held between 2000 and 2019. The data shows that U.S. trusts held assets worth a total of more than $1 billion. Those included U.S. real estate and bank accounts in Panama, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas and elsewhere.
To perform the analysis of U.S.-based trusts, ICIJ manually gathered information on the creators, known as settlors; the beneficiaries, and the assets held by the trusts. ICIJ was able to identify and gather data on trusts from 15 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
ICIJ and its media partners used keyword searches to identify politicians in the data, using passport information to help with the identification.
ICIJ used public records to verify details related to the companies and to be sure the people named in the data were actually the political leaders identified with those names. We found some false positives and discarded them. Among sources used in the research were the Dow Jones Risk and Compliance database, Sayari, Nexis, OpenCorporates, property records in the U.S and U.K., and public corporate records. More than 330 politicians and high level public officials, including 35 country leaders were confirmed.
ICIJ structured the information in a spreadsheet and put it through two rounds of fact-checking. Data gathered on politicians was also visualized in the profiles in our Power Players feature.
ICIJ matched Forbes’s billionaires lists against the Pandora Papers to find more than 130 who had entities in secrecy jurisdictions. More than 100 of them had a combined fortune valued at more than $600 billion in 2021.
ICIJ analyzed 109 so-called suspicious activity reports to financial authorities filed by the Panamanian law firm Alemán, Cordero, Galindo & Lee, or Alcogal, and learned that 87 of the anti-money-laundering forms were written only after authorities or journalists had publicly identified the firm’s clients as involved in alleged wrongdoing.
ICIJ also read through several thousand publicly available employees’ profiles and found out that more than 220 lawyers associated with the giant law firm Baker McKenzie in 35 countries had previously held government posts in agencies including justice departments, tax offices, the EU Commission, and offices of heads of state.
ICIJ also did research and analysis to explore the role offshore finance plays in hiding looted art and ancient relics that authorities and communities seek to reclaim.
Finally, the Pandora Papers investigation identified more than 500 BVI companies that had been clients of Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the center of the Panama Papers scandal, and moved their business to other BVI providers in the aftermath whom we found in the data.
ICIJ also matched Panamanian companies from the Panama Papers data against data available for the Panama corporate registry on OpenCorporates, and found out that at least 113 companies had changed registered agents and simply moved to Alcogal between April 3, 2016 and 2020. Together with The Miami Herald data team, ICIJ also counted 759 BVI companies that specifically considered moving to Trident Trust as part of the provider’s so-called “Mossfon Project”.
How big a slice of all offshore provider data in the world does the Pandora Papers leak represent?
The Pandora Papers probe offers a broad look at secrecy jurisdictions and offshore service providers, but the data came incomplete.
The quality of the data varied by provider. In some cases, the data tied to companies didn’t offer information about the jurisdiction where they were registered, the period during which an individual was linked to an entity, or about intermediaries. The data still offered important information about owners and, in some cases, transactions and other financial details.
The 14 providers, which offered services in at least 38 jurisdictions, are part of a larger industry of offshore services operating around the world. It’s hard to say how much of the universe of provider data we have, a small fraction, probably.
For example, in the BVI, where six, or nearly half, of the providers found in the Pandora Papers have acted as registered agents, they are among at least 101 firms acting in that capacity, according to the BVI Financial Services Commission. In March 2021, there were more than 370,000 active companies, about a dozen for each of the tiny island nation’s inhabitants.
Anguilla, Bahamas, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Panama, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Seychelles, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay
Anguilla, Bahamas, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Canada, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Delaware, Florida, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Latvia, St Lucia, Malta, Marshall Islands, Netherlands, Nevis, Mauritius, Panama, Ras Al Khaimah, Samoa, Seychelles, Singapore, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Vanuatu, St Vincent
Why so many more ‘ultimate beneficial owners’ – UBOs – here than in previous leaks?
A significant proportion of the beneficial ownership information in the Pandora Papers comes from reports generated by providers for the BVI’s Beneficial Ownership Secure Search System, or BOSS, established in the wake of the 2016 publication of the Panama Papers. This information is not available to the public.
A 2017 BVI law requires providers to report to BVI authorities the names of the real owners of the companies registered there. The leak identified many documents containing such information.
Why so many world leaders and politicians in the data?
Alcogal and Trident Trust was where we found a large number of current and former politicians and public officials as clients. Most of their companies were registered in the BVI and Panama. Alcogal clients include nearly half of the politicians and public officials identified in the Pandora Papers. In the beneficial ownership data that ICIJ was able to structure, nearly half of the companies were linked to Alcogal. Alcogal, headquartered in Panama, has among its founders several politicians, one of whom served as Panama’s ambassador to the United States.
Why so many beneficial owners from Russia and Latin America?
Some of the providers, based on their location and the jurisdictions where they do business, such as Cyprus, have a large proportion of Russian clients, the largest group by nationality in the Pandora Papers data.
In the Pandora Papers, more than 30% of the companies that received services from Demetrios A. Demetriades LLC, or DadLaw, a provider headquartered in Cyprus, had one or more Russians as beneficial owners. Similarly, more than 40% of the companies that received services from Seychelles-based Alpha Consulting Group, also had one or more Russians as beneficial owners. Alcogal and Fidelity Corporate Services Limited were also among the providers with the largest number of Russian clients.
A large proportion of beneficial owners appearing in the data are from Latin America. More than 90 of the more 330 politicians and public officials in the data are from Latin America. Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela are among the countries with the largest representation of beneficial owners. In the leaked data, Alcogal headquartered in Panama, has the largest group of Latin American clients.
Where are the U.S. citizens and multinational corporations?
When it comes to creating offshore companies, foundations and trusts, parties from different parts of the world and with different needs select different providers and jurisdictions for their shell companies.
Pandora Papers documents cover a large number of providers, but obviously not all, or even most, of them, and many jurisdictions are not represented in the data.
In previous ICIJ investigations, including 2017’s Paradise Papers, the leak came from a prestigious law firm with a larger corporate practice, Appleby. As a result, the data included more documents about multinationals. Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, which are popular havens for corporations, were among the jurisdictions with a large presence in that leak.
As for U.S. nationals, ICIJ identified more than 700 companies with beneficial owners connected to the U.S. in the Pandora Papers; Americans were also among the top 20 nationalities represented in the data. In the Pandora Papers, Russia, the United Kingdom, Argentina, China and Brazil, are among the countries with the largest representation of beneficial owners.
In the Paradise Papers, U.S. citizens had a larger relative presence.
Is ICIJ going to release the Pandora Papers data?
With today’s publication, ICIJ is sharing data and details about the use of companies in secrecy jurisdictions by more than 50 politicians, through the Power Players feature. ICIJ is planning to incorporate data from the Pandora Papers into the Offshore Leaks database. To learn more about ICIJ’s data releases, subscribe to ICIJ’s email newsletter.”
Novaya Gazeta handed over to the CEC a recording of a secret training session, during which it was decided who would win the elections in the Moscow region and with what result: AUDIO
At the disposal of “Novaya” was an audio recording of a meeting on “falsification of elections” in Korolev, near Moscow. Tatyana Yurasova talks about what we learned from the recording: the falsification curator sets a task for the heads of election commissions and explains the technology of stealing votes.
On September 2, the recording and the official request of the editorial staff were sent to the Central Election Commission – we are waiting for the official response of Ella Pamfilova.
Will we have an understanding that the sites are being watched? – the chairman of one of the electoral commissions asked with alarm in his voice, having heard that the video broadcast from the polling stations of the Queen will be conducted constantly, day and night.
Someone expressed a doubt: how do you know about it – in the area of a thousand plots. The skeptic was interrupted by the briefing woman. “I think they will call us and tell us,” she confidently told the heads of the PECs of the Moscow Region Korolyov who had gathered for the training.
She talked about innovations during the three-day voting in the elections to the State Duma and the Moscow Regional Duma, about the organization of work and, among other things, about the methods of falsification and actions that exclude the risk of getting caught for forgery. “The main thing is composure and calmness,” the woman repeated several times, instilling confidence in those present that she had everything under control.
One of those present made an audio recording of the briefing and gave it to Novaya Gazeta with a small annotation. Three people independently listened to the anonymous recording and, in terms of timbre, manner of speaking and a number of characteristic turns, made an assumption: the voice of the “instructor” seemed to them very similar to the voice of the adviser to the head of the “Queen” Zhanna Prokofieva.
Zhanna Prokofieva at one of the meetings of the working group at the Electoral Commission of the Moscow Region
The latter arrived in the city “in the train” of the former mayor of Reutov, Alexander Khodyrev, when he set his sights on the post of head of the “space capital”. And she began to engage in elections: first as the chairman of the territorial election commission, and then unofficially, as the deputy mayor, when in January 2017 she was “left” due to scandals in the elections to the State Duma. It was the user under the nickname “Zhanna Prokofieva” who directed the telegram chat “September 2019”, where the chairmen of precinct commissions discussed falsifications in the elections to the city council in the fall of 2019.
On the audio recording, a woman with a voice, as one might assume, similar to that of Zhanna Prokofieva, described how election commissions, with the support of the administration, would falsify elections in favor of United Russia and what result they should get. To achieve it she proposed a technology against which even “smart voting” is powerless.
No, – several voices of the seminar participants were heard at once. Apparently, people from other cities were present. On the eve of the elections in September 2019, several dozen residents from other cities of the Moscow region were brought into the composition of the royal election commissions – primarily Reutov, Balashikha and Mytishchi. All of them worked in housing and communal services companies controlled by people from the inner circle of Mayor Khodyrev. But if Korolev, along with Pushkino and Sergiev Posad, were included in the 125th constituency for the elections to the State Duma, then Reutov, Balashikha and Mytishchi constituted the 117th constituency. Districts also differed in the elections to the Regional Duma.
[Sergei] Pakhomov – to the State Duma, Sergei Aykovich Kerselyan – to the Mosoblduma, – named the “instructor” the names of the candidates from the “United Russia”, campaigning and whose portraits the whole Korolev was pasted over. According to her, for single-mandate candidates, it is not the percentages that are important, but the number of votes.
A minute earlier, “Zhanna Prokofieva” announced the result that the election commissions need to ensure according to party lists: “We are interested in a specific figure and a specific party – 42–45% according to the party list”. She did not mention the name of the party, but during the seminar more than once they talked about the “services” that should be provided to this particular party – for example, on election day, not only the TEC, but also United Russia should be informed about the turnout for a certain hour.
The audio recording says that this task – to provide “United Russia” with 45% – was set allegedly by the Main Directorate of Territorial Policy of the Government of the Moscow Region,
held in Korolyov a meeting of the headquarters for elections in the 125th constituency. The meeting, according to Zhanna Prokofieva, was also attended by the heads of Pushkino and Sergiev Posad. Mayor of the Queen Alexander Khodyrev made a report and informed about the measures to achieve the desired result. I liked the report.
“But after the end of the speech of Alexander Nikolaevich [Khodyrev] there was a big request (and you yourself understand that any request from the government is a law, an order), […] that everything would go like a blank sheet: cleanly, without comments, without statements, without complaints , without violating the electoral legislation “, – the” instructor “conveyed the” wish “of the higher authorities.
“We ourselves want to do this, we ourselves do not want to justify ourselves, answer, testify, talk with representatives of law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and higher commissions,” the woman motivated the chairmen.
In 2019, after the release of the investigation of the falsifications in Korolev, Zhanna Prokofieva had to give explanations to the working group of the Moscow Regional Electoral Commission. At the very first meeting, the members of the working group discovered that the bales of documents in the storage of the royal TEC looked very different than the packages on the site, as evidenced by photographs of the observers. Zhanna Prokofieva was invited to the second meeting, and she gave an explanation: they say that at night the chairman found forgotten documents in the safe, so they had to open the bale and pack it again. Several PEC chairpersons were also summoned to the meeting, and although the attempt to figure it out was more like a performance, they also had to endure several unpleasant minutes. It is unlikely that the secretary of the TEC Ekaterina Tseplyaeva also enjoyed the inspection and visits to the court.
Two men took an active part in the briefing. The “instructor” introduced them as deputy heads in charge of the elections. One was named Sergei Viktorovich, the other – Pavel Vladimirovich. According to “Zhanna Prokofieva”, the head asked them to also be present to understand the specifics of voting and the mechanisms for implementing the task.
On the official website of the Queen’s administration, among the deputy heads there are
Sergey Viktorovich Ivanov
Pavel Vladimirovich Kotov.
Sergei Ivanov and Pavel Kotov. Photo from the site of the “Queen’s administration”
Having designated the problem, “Zhanna Prokofieva” suggested tried-and-tested methods for solving it.
Submitting fake observers
“I hope THEM will not have enough strength to catch us like that, – we see how everything is going now,” the woman “instructor” was busily analyzing possible threats. They, in her opinion, came mainly from observers.
The main parties did not arouse alarm among the administration: “we have no problems with the Liberal Democratic Party,” “the party of Rost, we are not worried,” and everything is in order with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
We should be fine with the communists – whatever they are, but they are ours, royal, and not pro-American. “Zhanna Prokofieva” confirmed what ordinary communists and active citizens had long guessed about. The local Communist Party of the Russian Federation did not conduct an active campaign, kept campaigning on a meager ration, the recruitment of observers was carried out almost in secret from the party members. Many of them did not rule out that they would watch for the sake of appearance, as it was in the elections in 2019. Then, from the correspondence in the chat of the falsifiers, everyone learned about a large number of “our Communist Party of the Russian Federation” – those who became observers from the Communist Party on behalf of the administration.
Panel with video broadcasts from polling stations during voting in 2020. Photo: RIA Novosti
Only the observers of the candidate for the Moscow Regional Duma from the “Fair Russia” Olga Privalova instilled some alarm in “Zhanna Prokofieva”. The latter promised to close the polling stations with observers, to whom she was ready to pay money for three days of work. The recruitment took place on the VKontakte social network, it was reported by the local media, followed by Zhanna Prokofieva.
According to her, very few people were registered as observers. On the eve of the movement “Golos” was declared a foreign agent, and the “instructor” feared that the observers would be drawn to Privalovaya. Therefore, she suggested that the leadership of the election commissions step up in this direction.
“I think your fellow observers don’t care where to sit and do nothing, and even for a small salary,” she hinted transparently, avoiding words such as “zaslanets” and “fake observers”. At that time, there were about 60 people in the observer chat of the SR candidate.
“Only your own people, no one else,” shared “Zhanna Prokofieva” with a grin in her voice.
And nevertheless, despite all the efforts to make agreements and send fake observers, the “instructor” urged the participants of the seminar not to relax. Elections in the Queen rarely did without scandals, but here they asked to do everything cleanly and quietly. “Zhanna Prokofieva”, apparently, came up with a way to get the desired result and at the same time reduce the risks of failure to zero.
Voter and Observer Lists
“If you do everything competently, then even a smart, even stupid, even some kind of vote will not work,” Zhanna Prokofieva summed up, having finished answering the question from the audience about the turnout expectations.
In addition to home voting, which should account for 20% of the turnout, duplicate electoral lists should become the main mechanism for solving the problem. “One is for observers, the other is for voters,” said a woman with a voice that could be assumed to be similar to the mayor’s advisor, avoiding pronouncing the numbers out loud.
Judging by the reaction of the audience, everyone understood her perfectly.
The lists “for voters” are real; the voter signs on them upon receipt of the ballot. By counting the number of signatures, it is easy to find out the real turnout.
The lists “for observers” are fake, they will be pre-filled with the number of signatures required to get the “ER” result of 45%.
At some point, the “voter lists” will be replaced with fake ones. And “charging” ballots is not a problem, it is easier to manipulate them than to forge signatures on the go. Especially if there are observers at the site.
It is dangerous to work with a ready-made list – the voter can see what kind of a neighbor has signed.
“The [list] that will surrender, it turns out to be quite voluminous, by 45%. I advise you to start producing it immediately after receiving the sheets of the voter list, ”says Zhanna Prokofieva. It will take a lot of time to enter the data and sign for several hundred voters, so the “instructor” promises that the commissions will receive lists no later than 10 days before the start of voting.
List of voters assigned to the site. Photo: Svetlana Vidanova / Novaya Gazeta
The audience took the prospect of falsifying the lists calmly – after 15 minutes it turned out that this trick was used by the royal PECs at the all-Russian vote on the Constitution.
But the question of the timing of the change aroused keen interest because of the incident at the site number 1086 in the recreation center “Kostino”. During the voting on the amendments, the voter discovered that they had already signed for her and her relatives. Soon more than 40 people found fake signatures for themselves. One woman went to file a complaint with the prosecutor’s office, and the observer, Inna Karezina, called the police.
The commission urgently announced the disinfection of the premises, everyone was removed from the site. Upon their return, people suddenly found completely new books with voter lists on the PEC members – not the already worn and filled with fake signatures, but clean and almost without signatures. “It became clear that the commission had a duplicate list,” Karezina said later.
In the elections for amendments to the Constitution, observers at PEC No. 1086 Korolyov discovered fake signatures for voters. After the disinfection was suddenly announced at the site, the observers looked again at the lists – they were new and without violations.
To avoid a scandal escalation, the Moscow Regional Electoral Commission put pressure on the TEC, and as a result, voting at the polling station from June 25 to June 30, which is 1140 ballots, was invalidated.
According to independent analyst Sergei Shpilkin, an additional 41,000 votes were drawn in Korolev.
Apparently, that failure caused a lot of stress among the fraudsters, so at the seminar they arranged a detailed “debriefing”, trying to understand what was done wrong and where. According to “Zhanna Prokofieva” and “deputy head” Pavel Vladimirovich, the main mistake of the chairman of PEC No. 1086 Sergei Tarbin was that, being confused, he allowed outsiders to get acquainted with the list – observers, “people who failed, did not know and did not understand the legislation”, who came to the polling station in order to “assert themselves” at the expense of the PEC members.
“It is impossible to allow someone to get hold of the voter list until evening, this is nonsense,” the “instructor” instilled in the heads of election commissions.
And she prompted them to countermeasures: a preparation with references to articles of the law and strict observance of social distance.
She also instructed on the moment when it is best to replace the lists: “much after 20:00”: “At 20:00 on September 19, the last voter left, and you start: someone extinguishes unused ballots, and those who sat on the books [of the voter list ], – to work with books. And sit with them until the moment comes to replace them. At least sit until the carrot’s plot! “
In the 2019 local elections, observers were kept at polling stations until late at night. On the double federal and regional “carrot spell”, apparently, will stretch until the morning.
Returning to the story with the cancellation of the early deadline at PEC No. 1086, Zhanna Prokofieva, in fact, admits that the entire vote on the amendments was falsified: elections, and that this man [Inna Karezin] needed to be left at the polling station. To give, roughly speaking, this site as a sacrifice, so that she does not go further. “
According to the “instructor”, there was a lot of noise, people from a higher commission came to the recreation center “Kostino”, they called her herself from the CEC. “Well, nothing, we went through it,” said “Zhanna Prokofieva”.
On July 27, the Moscow Regional Electoral Commission made a decision on a petition to the Central Election Commission to award members of the Moscow Region electoral commissions with the honorary badge of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation “For merits in organizing elections”. Korolev is represented by one of the largest “delegations” – 12 people. The surnames for the most part coincide with the surnames of the participants in the “chat of forgers”.
At the polling station. Photo: Victoria Odissonova / Novaya Gazeta
Fraud scandals in Korolyov became an integral part of the electoral landscape with the accession of Mayor Khodyrev and his team to the city. And every time they invariably sounded the name of Zhanna Prokofieva. After the scandal with the removal of observers at the elections to the State Duma in 2016, she had to resign in order to then go for a promotion and continue to steer the elections.
At the end of October 2019, the CEC held a meeting at which they heard the report of the Moscow Regional Electoral Commission on checking the publication of Novaya Gazeta on falsification in Korolev. The head of the IKMO showed a presentation with a photograph of the working group and cheerfully reported to the CEC that then the case went downhill.
The head of the “chat of falsifiers” and its participants got away with it then. However, the diagnosis of “khodyrevshchina” was made, with which the CEC chairman identified the “remnants” of that most difficult negative phenomenon, reflecting flagrant violations in the electoral process of the Moscow region. The briefing made it clear to everyone that these “remnants” have long turned into metastases, and “Khodyrevschina” as a phenomenon is much broader, since, as one might assume, the government of the Moscow Region and patrons from the CEC are involved in it.
WE ARE WAITING FOR REACTION
On September 2, the recording and the official request of the editorial staff were sent to the Central Election Commission – we are waiting for the official response of Ella Pamfilova.
BREAKING!! YOU MUST LISTEN- THIS IS MSM ABOUT AN OFFICIAL REPORT OF ADVERSE SE – ——- A senior official in the Israeli MOH: “There seems to be an excess disease and we will have to take this into account in our recommendation to vaccinate children. Based on 70% of the data received from the hospitals, it seems that the vaccine has been LINKED to myocarditis. There are more such cases in VACCINATED 16-30 y.o. than in unvaccinated.
Daphne Caruana Galizias Arbeit zur Aufdeckung von Korruption in Malta befasste sich mit Visa-zum-Verkauf-Programmen, Energieverträgen und karibischen Offshore-Unternehmen, die für maltesische Politiker gegründet wurden. Eine Untersuchung hat nun ergeben, dass all diese Geschichten zusammenkommen - in China.
Wichtigste Ergebnisse:
Macbridge, ein mysteriöses Unternehmen, das im Rahmen eines von Daphne Caruana Galizia untersuchten Kickback-Programms benannt wurde, ist mit einem chinesischen Berater verbunden, der einen wichtigen Energievertrag in Malta ausgehandelt hat.
Macbridge wurde von der Schwiegermutter des Beraters Chen Cheng gegründet, einem leitenden Angestellten der chinesischen Niederlassung des multinationalen Beratungsunternehmens Accenture.
Sowohl Chen als auch seine Schwiegermutter sind mit Unternehmen und Geschäftsleuten verbunden, die den Verkauf von maltesischen Aufenthaltsvisa in China erleichtern.
Chen bat einen anderen Verwandten, eine Firma zu gründen, die eine Zahlung von einer Million Euro von 17 Black erhielt, einer Firma, die bekanntermaßen dem maltesischen Tycoon Yorgen Fenech gehört, der wegen Mordes an Caruana Galizia angeklagt ist.
Hintergrund:
Der Tatort des Mordes
Für ein winziges Land hat die Mittelmeerinsel Malta eine Vielzahl von Korruptionsskandalen ausgelöst - und die maltesische investigative Journalistin Daphne Caruana Galizia hat die meisten davon in ihrem Kreuzzugsblog Running Commentary behandelt.
Sie war eine der ersten, die über 17 Black berichtete, eine mysteriöse Firma in Dubai, von der sie glaubte, dass sie mit hochrangigen maltesischen Beamten in Verbindung steht. Sie befasste sich auch mit zweifelhaften Umständen im Zusammenhang mit einer Vereinbarung von 2014, eine größere Beteiligung an Maltas einzigem Elektrizitätsunternehmen an ein chinesisches Staatsunternehmen zu verkaufen, und einer verdächtigen späteren Investition in einen Windpark in Montenegro. Und 2016 griff sie einen chinesischen Medienbericht auf, in dem behauptet wurde, Malta würde Aufenthaltsvisa an wohlhabende chinesische Bürger verkaufen - ohne Fragen zur Quelle der Mittel der Antragsteller.
Aber Caruana Galizia hat das Ende dieser Geschichten nicht erlebt, obwohl ihre Arbeit dazu führte, dass sie in Malta zu wichtigen politischen Themen wurden, was zu mehreren Korruptionsfällen und sogar zu Strafanzeigen gegen Mitglieder der politischen Elite des Landes führte.
Im Oktober 2017, nur wenige Stunden nach der Veröffentlichung eines letzten Blogposts - „Es gibt überall Gauner, wo man jetzt hinschaut“ - warnte Caruana Galizia durch eine Autobombe. Ihre Ermordung löste einen Skandal aus, der Korruption im Herzen der maltesischen Regierung aufdeckte, ihren Premierminister stürzte und Schockwellen in der gesamten Europäischen Union auslöste.
Im Zusammenhang mit dem Mord wurden seitdem drei Personen inhaftiert. In einem Gericht in Valletta sagte einer von ihnen, ein angeheuerter Killer, Caruana Galizia sei getötet worden, weil sie "einige Details" zu einem nicht näher bezeichneten Thema veröffentlichen wollte. Der mutmaßliche Vordenker des Bombenanschlags, der maltesische Tycoon Yorgen Fenech, befandt sich im Gefängnis und wartete auf den Prozess, wurde nun aber wieder freigelassen.
Yorgen Fenech
Jetzt sind Journalisten von OCCRP und Partnern einer Spur von Hinweisen gefolgt, die Caruana Galizia von Malta nach China entdeckt hat, wo sie zwei Personen entdeckten, die diese Geschichten, die sie verfolgt hatte, miteinander verbinden - den 17-Korruptionsskandal der Schwarzen, die zweifelhaften Energieverträge und die Residenz Visa-for-Sale-Programm.
"Durch diese Skandale wurde deutlich, dass sie immer wieder zur Beteiligung derselben Personengruppen führen", sagte ihr Sohn Matthew Caruana Galizia gegenüber OCCRP, nachdem er die Ergebnisse der neuen Untersuchung überprüft hatte.
"Es ist ein klarer Hinweis darauf, wie es einigen Einzelpersonen in kürzester Zeit gelungen ist, den gesamten Staatsapparat eines EU-Landes zu übernehmen und ihn zu ihrem eigenen Vorteil in ein Piratenschiff zu verwandeln."
Nachdem Caruana Galizia getötet worden war, rannten Journalisten auf der ganzen Welt, um sich mit den Themen zu befassen, die sie behandelt hatte, darunter 17 Schwarze. Sie hatte wiederholt über das Unternehmen geschrieben und vorgeschlagen, dass es an Spitzenpolitiker gebunden sei, aber es gelang ihr nie, die Behauptung zu beweisen.
Im Jahr 2018 enthüllten Reuters und die Times of Malta, dass 17 Black im Besitz von Fenech war, einem auffälligen lokalen Geschäftsmann mit einem angeblichen Geschmack für Kokain und Rennpferde. Er stand einigen der mächtigsten politischen Persönlichkeiten Maltas nahe - darunter Premierminister Joseph Muscat und sein Stabschef Keith Schembri - und leitete ein Konglomerat, das Teil eines Konsortiums war, das 2013 eine große Konzession für den Bau eines 450-Millionen-Konzerns erhielt. Euro-Kraftwerk.
Fenech benutzte offenbar 17 Black, um Bestechungsgelder an Politiker weiterzuleiten. Die Geschichte zitierte einen kritischen Beweis: eine durchgesickerte E-Mail von 2015, die von der maltesischen Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft Nexia BT gesendet wurde und besagt, dass 17 Black voraussichtlich bis zu 2 Millionen US-Dollar an Shell-Unternehmen senden wird, die von zwei hochrangigen maltesischen Politikern in Panama gegründet wurden: Schembri und Energieminister Konrad Mizzi.
Was jedoch nicht allgemein berichtet wurde, war, dass in der E-Mail ein anderes mysteriöses Unternehmen als Geldquelle für die Unternehmen von Mizzi und Schembri genannt wurde. Es wurde in der Presse nur als "Macbridge" bezeichnet.
Die 2015 von Nexia BT an die panamaische Anwaltskanzlei Mossack Fonseca gesendete E-Mail über die Gründung von Shell-Unternehmen für Keith Schembri und Konrad Mizzi.
Caruana Galizia hatte sich ebenfalls leise in das Unternehmen eingegraben, nachdem sie 2016 von derselben E-Mail erfahren hatte und von einer Quelle gehört hatte, dass Macbridge und 17 Black laut ihrem Sohn und Aufzeichnungen ihrer Arbeit, die von Reportern gesehen wurden, „entscheidend für die Entschlüsselung des Webs“ waren .
Macbridge war jedoch schwerer zu finden als 17 schwarze und maltesische Beamte, die sich geweigert haben, Fragen zur Existenz des Unternehmens zu beantworten. Als der damalige Finanzminister Edward Scicluna letztes Jahr von einem Reporter gefragt wurde, dem Macbridge gehörte, erwiderte er: "Sehen Sie, wenn Sie sensationell sein wollen, fahren Sie fort." Journalisten glaubten, es handele sich um ein Unternehmen der Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate wie 17 Black, aber dort wurde nie eine Spur davon gefunden.
Dies liegt daran, dass die Wurzeln des Unternehmens tatsächlich auf der halben Welt liegen. OCCRP und seine Berichtspartner haben dies in Hongkong entdeckt. Das Unternehmen ist dort als "Macbridge International Development Co Ltd" registriert, zusammen mit einem chinesischen Namen, der die Zeichen für "Malta" und "China" kombiniert.
Reporter stellten außerdem fest, dass 17 Black Mitte 2016 1 Million Euro an ein anderes Unternehmen in Hongkong, Dow's Media Co Ltd, sandte, das eine sehr ähnliche Struktur und Struktur wie Macbridge aufweist.
Dow’s Media wurde im Oktober 2014, nur wenige Wochen nach Macbridge, unter Verwendung des gleichen in Hongkong ansässigen Formationsagenten und der gleichen registrierten Adressen in Hongkong und Shanghai gegründet. Beide Unternehmen wurden im Januar 2019 innerhalb einer Woche voneinander aufgelöst.
Die Ermittler in Malta suchten 2018 im Rahmen einer Untersuchung zu „möglicher Korruption und Geldwäsche“ nach Einzelheiten zu beiden Unternehmen aus Hongkong und China.
Macbridge und Dow’s Media sind so eingerichtet, dass es schwierig ist festzustellen, wem sie tatsächlich gehören. Sie werden von Shell-Unternehmen auf den Seychellen bzw. den Marshallinseln kontrolliert.
Reporter stellten jedoch fest, dass beide von Vertretern mit familiären Bindungen zu einem Mann geleitet werden: einem chinesischen Berater, der im Mittelpunkt wichtiger Geschäfte mit dem von Maltas Regierung unterstützten Energieversorger Enemalta steht.
Caruana Galizia hatte ausführlich über diesen Mann, Chen Cheng, einen Geschäftsführer der chinesischen Energiesparte des globalen Beratungsunternehmens Accenture, geschrieben. Chen war einer der Hauptakteure bei den Verhandlungen über einen Deal 2014 für Chinas staatseigenes Unternehmen Shanghai Electric Power, ein Drittel von Enemalta zu kaufen.
Das Geschäft hatte einen Wert von 320 Millionen Euro, die größte Auslandsinvestition des Landes, wurde jedoch in Malta und auf dem Blog von Caruana Galizia kritisiert, weil es dem chinesischen Unternehmen zu günstigen Konditionen gewährt hatte.
Accenture hat Shanghai Electric Power bei dem Deal beraten, und Chen hat ihn in den chinesischen Medien als wegweisendes Belt-and-Road-Projekt angepriesen, das vom chinesischen Ministerpräsidenten Li Keqiang gebilligt wurde.
Caruana Galizia berichtete, dass eine Quelle ihr sagte, Chen sei "dem Energieminister Konrad Mizzi besonders nahe", der die Verhandlungen auf maltesischer Seite beaufsichtigte. (Bei einer anschließenden Untersuchung wurden E-Mails zwischen Chen, Mizzi und anderen über einen Plan zur Gründung einer Agentur in China im selben Jahr zur Förderung von Investitionen in Malta aufgedeckt.)
Sie enthüllte auch ein wichtiges Detail über Chen: Als die Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft Nexia BT Schembri und Mizzi half, Geheimfirmen in Panama zu registrieren, gründete sie auch eine Firma für Chen auf den Britischen Jungferninseln.
Was Daphne jedoch nicht wusste, war, dass Chen im Zusammenhang mit dem Kickback-Skandal, den sie entwirrte, auch mit den Offshore-Unternehmen verbunden war - und mit den Aufenthaltsvisa-Systemen, über die sie seit langem Verdacht hegte.
Macbridge und Dow's Media wurden beide ungefähr zur gleichen Zeit in Hongkong gegründet, als Chen an dem Enemalta-Deal arbeitete, und zwar von zwei seiner Familienmitglieder: Tang Zhaomin, seiner 65-jährigen Schwiegermutter, und Wang Rui, seiner Cousine der Schwiegermutter.
Reporter verfolgten Wang in die ostchinesische Stadt Nanjing, wo sie und Tang eine Firma besitzen, die lokale Niederlassungen der Fast-Food-Kette KFC betreibt.
In einem Telefoninterview sagte sie, Chen habe sie gebeten, Dows Medien zu öffnen, weil die Verbindung zu einem chinesischen Staatsunternehmen es ihm "unpraktisch" machte, dies selbst zu tun. Sie sagte, sie wisse nichts über die Geschäftstätigkeit oder den Erhalt von 1 Million Euro von 17 Black.
Tang konnte nicht für einen Kommentar erreicht werden. Die neuen Beweise, die das von ihr geleitete Unternehmen Macbridge mit ihrem Familienmitglied Chen verbinden, deuten jedoch darauf hin, dass der chinesische Geschäftsmann eine Rolle bei der Weiterleitung von Geldern an die geheimen Panama-Unternehmen Schembri und Mizzi gespielt hat.
Geld von was? Es ist unklar, aber nach der erfolgreichen Investition von Shanghai Electric Power in Enemalta wurde Chen einer der Hauptförderer einer anschließenden Investition von Enemalta 2015 in das Windparkprojekt Mozura in Montenegro.
Laut einer internen Enemalta-Untersuchung hat Accenture diese Investition im Dezember 2014 beraten, wobei Chen Enemalta in einer PowerPoint-Präsentation die Idee vorstellte.
Die Untersuchung warf ernsthafte Bedenken hinsichtlich des Deals auf, bei dem auch Fenech eine Rolle spielte.
Seine 17 Black halfen heimlich dabei, den Kauf einer Mehrheitsbeteiligung an Enemalta im Dezember 2015 für 2,9 Millionen Euro über ein Darlehen an einen Seychellen-Vermittler namens Cifidex Limited zu finanzieren. Das Unternehmen, das Chen in den Deal einbezogen hatte, verkaufte seine Projektanteile nur zwei Wochen später für 10,3 Millionen Euro an Enemalta und erzielte einen enormen Gewinn.
Cifidex hat das Darlehen dann an 17 Black zurückgezahlt, zusammen mit einem Gewinn von 4,6 Millionen Euro aus dem Deal. 17 Black wiederum schickte von Mai bis Juli 2016 ungefähr zur gleichen Zeit 1 Million Euro an Dow's Media.
Obwohl OCCRP keinen endgültigen Beweis dafür gefunden hat, dass dies dasselbe Geld war, deuten die neuen Beweise darauf hin, dass Chen nicht nur an der Erleichterung geheimer Geldflüsse für maltesische Spitzenpolitiker beteiligt war, sondern auch von der 17 Black-Pipeline profitierte.
Ein Sprecher von Enemalta sagte per E-Mail, dass der interne Bericht über das Abkommen zwischen Montenegro und Mozura „an die Polizei weitergeleitet wurde, um bei Ermittlungen behilflich zu sein. Weitere Kommentare zu diesem Zeitpunkt wären unklug. “
In einer Erklärung zu Chens angeblichen Aktivitäten im Zusammenhang mit Energiegeschäften und Offshore-Unternehmen sowie zu seinen offensichtlichen Interessenkonflikten sagte Accenture: „Wir nehmen diese Angelegenheit sehr ernst und prüfen diese Anschuldigungen sorgfältig, da sie sich auf einen unserer Mitarbeiter beziehen. Wir halten uns in jedem Markt, in dem wir tätig sind, an die höchsten ethischen Standards und tolerieren keine Abweichungen von diesen Standards. “ Chen selbst antwortete nicht auf Anfragen nach Kommentaren.
Mizzi sagte per E-Mail, dass er "keine Informationen" über Macbridge oder irgendjemanden habe, der damit verbunden sei, und fügte hinzu, dass er "die Behauptung, dass eine direkte oder sonstige Verbindung besteht", zwischen seinem Unternehmen und Macbridge "konsequent zurückgewiesen" habe.
"Ich lehne auch den Vorschlag ab, Geschäftspläne mit Macbridge zu haben oder ein persönliches Interesse an einem öffentlichen Projekt zu haben", sagte er. "Ich kenne Chen Cheng als Berater, der [Shanghai Electric Power] bei mehreren Initiativen unterstützt, und meine Interaktionen mit ihm fanden in diesem offiziellen Kontext statt."
Schembri antwortete nicht auf eine Bitte um Kommentar. In den letzten Tagen haben maltesische Staatsanwälte ihn, seinen Vater und neun Geschäftspartner, darunter Mitarbeiter von Nexia BT, wegen Betrugs und Geldwäsche in einem nicht verwandten Fall angeklagt.
Chen und seine Schwiegermutter sind nicht nur an Offshore-Unternehmen und Energiegeschäften beteiligt. Reporter stellten fest, dass sie auch Verbindungen zu einem der größten Unternehmen Maltas haben: dem Verkauf von Staatsbürgerschafts- und Aufenthaltsvisa an wohlhabende Ausländer, die die Insel als Hintertür in die Europäische Union nutzen können.
Diese Verbindungen laufen über einen Geschäftsmann aus Shanghai, der den Verkauf von maltesischen Aufenthaltsvisa in China effektiv kontrolliert - über dieselbe Firma, die Caruana Galizia in ihrem Blogbeitrag 2016 hervorgehoben hat.
Zu dieser Zeit hatte sie kaum mehr zu tun als einen einzigen Medienbericht und ein Foto, das eine Unterzeichnungszeremonie für den Start des Malta Residence and Visa-Programms in China zeigt, das von Konrad Mizzis Frau Sai Mizzi Liang geleitet wird. Aber „Instinkt, Erfahrung und die Nase für eine Geschichte“ sagten ihr, dass die Situation mehr zu bieten hatte.
Ein Foto von der Eröffnungsfeier 2016 des MRVP-Programms. Sai Mizzi Liang, die Frau von Konrad Mizzi, steht im Hintergrund, vierte von rechts.
„Der nächste Schritt, der hier unternommen werden muss - bitte, andere Journalisten steigen in diesen ein -, besteht darin, einen Weg zu finden, um die Beteiligungen und Beteiligungen dieses Unternehmens in China zu überprüfen, was sehr schwierig, aber notwendig sein wird. " Sie schrieb.
Caruana Galizia hatte Recht, dass es schwierig ist, Unternehmen in China aufzuspüren. Obwohl das Land über ein Unternehmensregistrierungssystem verfügt, sind die darin enthaltenen Informationen häufig unstrukturiert oder unvollständig und können nur von Personen navigiert werden, die fließend Chinesisch sprechen.
Nach monatelangen Nachforschungen stellten Reporter jedoch fest, dass die Shanghai Overseas Exit-Entry Services Co. Ltd., die die offizielle Konzession für den Verkauf von Visa für maltesische Aufenthaltsgenehmigungen in China besitzt, von einem Geschäftsmann namens Mao Haibin, auch bekannt als Kevin Mao, betrieben wird.
Chinesische Aufzeichnungen zeigen, dass Mao Verbindungen zu Chen und seiner Schwiegermutter hat - der Frau, die Macbridge leitet.
Mao und Chen waren Partner in mindestens zwei Unternehmen, darunter Shanghai Visabao Network Technology Co. Ltd., die in mehreren großen chinesischen Städten tätig ist und chinesischen Bürgern bei der Beschaffung von Visa im Ausland hilft.
Chens Schwiegermutter ist Managerin und Aktionärin einer von Mao kontrollierten Werbeagentur in Shanghai, die wiederum ein wichtiger Sponsor der Veranstaltungen des Malta Residence and Visa Program in China war.
Mao, der nicht auf Anfragen nach Kommentaren geantwortet hat, hat mehrere andere Geschäftsinteressen im Zusammenhang mit der Erleichterung chinesischer Investitionen im Ausland - und speziell in Malta.
Aldo Cutajar (zweiter von rechts) und Mao Haibin (ganz rechts) sind bei einem Treffen im Jahr 2018 in den Büros von Shanghai Bangyi zu sehen, einem von Mao kontrollierten Unternehmen.
In den letzten Jahren hat er eine wichtige Rolle bei Maltas Bemühungen gespielt, wohlhabende chinesische Staatsangehörige für sein Visa-Verkaufsprogramm zu gewinnen. Er trat bei mehreren Veranstaltungen in Shanghai auf, um für das Programm zu werben, zusammen mit hochrangigen maltesischen Vertretern wie John Aquilina, Maltas Botschafter in China, und Aldo Cutajar, Maltas ehemaligem Generalkonsul in Shanghai. Einige dieser Veranstaltungen beinhalteten aufwendige Bankette, an denen hochrangige maltesische Diplomaten teilnahmen, mit zahlreichen warmen Zeugnissen über Maltas Status als „Schlüsselknoten“ in Chinas „Seidenstraße“.
Die maltesische Staatsbürgerschaftsbranche wurde jedoch kontrovers diskutiert. Im August 2020 wurde Aldo Cutajar von den maltesischen Behörden festgenommen und beschuldigt, illegal vom Verkauf von Visa in China profitiert und den Erlös gewaschen zu haben. Bei einer Durchsuchung seines Hauses fanden sie mehr als 540.000 Euro in bar und vier Rolex-Uhren. Im folgenden Monat wurde Schembri ebenfalls verhaftet, weil er angeblich Rückschläge vom Verkauf maltesischer Pässe an wohlhabende Russen erhalten hatte.
Mao hat mehrere andere Visa- und Immobilienunternehmen, die sich an wohlhabende chinesische Bürger richten, die im Ausland investieren möchten. Einige davon überschneiden sich mit seiner Arbeit, maltesische Aufenthaltsgenehmigungen zu verkaufen. Dazu gehören Shanghai Bangyi, ein Unternehmen für Visa- und Einwanderungsdienste, und Grandstone Investment, das Vermögensverwaltungsdienste für chinesische Staatsangehörige anbietet, die Geld ins Ausland transferieren möchten.
Die Website bietet ein Portal für direkte Anträge auf das Malta Residence and Visa Program. Er ist sogar Miteigentümer eines maltesischen Unternehmens, Asiatica Corporate Services Ltd, zusammen mit Mizzis persönlichem Anwalt, Aron Mifsud Bonnici, der auch eine Rolle bei der Aushandlung der Windparkinvestitionen von Enemalta spielte. Auf Fragen antwortete Mifsud Bonnici, er kenne Mao “in seiner Eigenschaft als CEO der Shanghai Overseas Exit Entry Services” und habe in seiner Rolle als Anwalt Visumanträge über offizielle Einwanderungssysteme bearbeitet. Mifsud Bonnici sagte, Asiatica sei eröffnet worden, um Visumantragstellern Unternehmensdienstleistungen anzubieten, habe aber nie ein Geschäft generiert. “Daher hat es nie funktioniert und steht jetzt vor der Liquidation”, sagte er.
Er sagte, er kenne Chen als Berater von Shanghai Electric Power und habe ihn “einige Zeit nach meiner Amtszeit als Enemalta-Vorstandssekretär” getroffen. Im Jahr 2019 gründete Maos jüngerer Bruder Mao Haichun zwei maltesische Unternehmen zusammen mit Roderick Cutajar, dem ehemaligen Leiter der Malta Residence Visa Agency, die den weltweiten Verkauf von Aufenthaltsvisa überwacht. Eines ihrer Joint Ventures verkauft seinen Wohnsitz in Malta und anderen europäischen Ländern an chinesische und internationale Käufer. Das andere ist ein verbundenes Immobilienunternehmen. Roderick Cutajar sagte Reportern, dass die Visafirma immVest nicht mit Mao Haibins Shanghai Overseas Entry Exit Service Ltd. verbunden ist.
“Meine Beziehung ist ausschließlich mit immVest International”, sagte er. “Darüber hinaus können Sie sicher sein, dass ich weder mit Aldo Cutajar, Chen Cheng noch mit Macbridge eine persönliche oder geschäftliche Beziehung habe.” In einer Rede, die im Januar dieses Jahres in chinesischen Videoblogs veröffentlicht wurde, äußerte sich Roderick Cutajar lyrisch über Maltas Bestreben, weiterhin chinesisches Kapital und neue Bürger anzuziehen. Er behauptete, China über 40 Mal besucht zu haben und sagte, das Geschäft boomte.
“Unsere Absicht ist es, weiter zu wachsen”, sagte er.
In einer Welt außerhalb Chinas trauert die Familie von Caruana Galizia immer noch um ihren Verlust und sucht nach Gerechtigkeit. Matthew Caruana Galizia sagte, seine Mutter wäre über die neuen Informationen über das Nest der Unternehmen, die sie untersucht hatte, zufrieden gewesen. „Die neuen Enthüllungen bestätigen, was sie wusste und versucht hatte, andere zu erkennen – dass die kriminelle Verstrickung politischer und geschäftlicher Interessen ein wesentliches bestimmendes Problem unserer Zeit ist. Korruption kostet Leben, genauso wie es meine Mutter kostet “, sagte er. “Ich denke, wenn sie am Leben wäre, um dies zu sehen, würde sie ein Gefühl der Erleichterung empfinden, dass ihre Arbeit bestätigt wird und dass sie in ihrem Kampf nicht allein ist.”
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Mir Rahman Rahmani
Afghanistan 🇦🇫
Year of birth: 1962
Application approved: 07.03.2017
Info: A former general in the Afghan military, Rahmani was appointed speaker of the Wolesi Jirga, Afghanistan’s lower house of parliament, in May 2019. The announcement lead to MPs fighting in the debating chamber.
Senior Afghan officials are not allowed dual citizenship.
Related applicants: Rahmani sponsored the application of his wife and three daughters, who acquired Cypriot citizenship on 01.12.2017. They are also citizens of the Caribbean country of St Kitts & Nevis.
Gati Saadi Al-Jebouri
Bulgaria 🇧🇬
Гати ал-Джибури
Year of birth: 1969
Application approved: 03.07.2018
Info: Managing Director of Lukoil Mid East Ltd (2017-2019).
Lukoil Mid East Ltd is 100 percent owned by Russian oil giant, Lukoil. The company has been under US sanctions since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Related applicants: Jebouri’s wife also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
陈安林
Year of birth: 1964
Application approved: 03.07.2018
Estimated net worth $57.9m
Info: A member of the CPPCC National Committee of Huangpi District, Chen is also a director of a subsidiary of the state-owned enterprise, China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group (CECEP).
Related applicants: Chen’s wife also acquired Cypriot citizenship. The couple are not investors but obtained passports through their son, Yao Chen, who became a Cypriot citizen on July 27, 2017.
Second citizenships are not allowed under Chinese law and can result in the automatic loss of Chinese citizenship.
傅政军
Year of birth: 1978
Application approved: 08.11.2017
Info: Fu’s companies include WEEK8 HOLDINGS (HK) LIMITED and Tian Ge Interactive Holdings Limited, a social media platform.
He also holds political office as vice-chairman of the presidium of Zhejiang Province Zheshang Economic Development Center and formerly as Member of the 6th Jinhua Municipal Committee of the CPPCC (2011-2017).
Related applicants: Fu’s wife also acquired a Cypriot passport.
Second citizenships are not allowed under Chinese law and can result in the automatic loss of Chinese citizenship.
Lu Wenbin
China 🇨🇳
陆文斌
Year of birth: 1964
Application approved: 24.07.2019
Info: Lu is a local political representative as deputy to the 17th Chengdu People’s Congress. Cyprus’ new rules banning PEPs from the golden passport scheme were just weeks away from coming into force by the time his passport was approved.
Related applicants: Lu’s wife also acquired a Cypriot passport.
Second citizenships are not allowed under Chinese law and can result in the automatic loss of Chinese citizenship.
Yang Huiyan
China 🇨🇳
杨惠妍
Year of birth: 1981
Application approved: 23.10.2018
Estimated net worth: $27bn
Info: Billionaire businesswoman and the richest woman in Asia. Yang is the majority shareholder of property developer Country Garden Holdings, a stake largely transferred to her by her father, Yeung Kwok Keung, in 2007. He is also a member of The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CCPPCC), an advisory body to the government.
Related applicants: Yang’s husband, Chen Chong, also acquired a Cypriot passport. He is a member of the 12th Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
Second citizenships are not allowed under Chinese law and can result in the automatic loss of Chinese citizenship.
Zhao Zhenpeng
China 🇨🇳
赵振鹏
Year of birth: 1981
Application approved: 12.02.2019
Info: Member of the Binzhou Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body to the government.
Zhao is chairman and the legal representative of Wuyi Yongli Salt Industry Co., Ltd.
Related applicants: Zhao’s wife also acquired a Cypriot passport.
Second citizenships are not allowed under Chinese law and can result in the automatic loss of Chinese citizenship.
Apurv Bagri
India 🇮🇳
Year of birth: 1959
Application approved: 16.01.2018
Info: Appointed to the board of directors of the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), a UAE government body, in 2004.
Bagri is currently the chairman of the DFSA’s Governance & Nominations Committee.
Related applicants: Spouse also acquired Cypriot citizenship on 12.02.2019.
Indian nationals are not allowed to hold dual citizenship.
Maleksabet Ebrahimi
Iran 🇮🇷
Year of birth: 1952
Application approved: 06.11.2018
Info: On an Interpol red-notice, along with his son, Mehdi. Wanted by Iran for misappropriation, breach of trust, money laundering, fraud, forgery and counterfeiting and leading an organised criminal group.
He faced trial in Canada in 2019 for money laundering of proceeds of sanctioned oil sales. Both men deny the charges and say they compiled with Iranian and Cypriot law.
Adilbek Sarsenov
Kazakhstan 🇰🇿
Адильбек САРСЕНОВ
Year of birth: 1973
Application approved: 07.05.2019
Info: On the board of directors of the state-owned telecoms company Kazakhtelecom (2010-2018).
Related applicants: His wife, Gulnara, also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Taha Mikati
Lebanon 🇱🇧
Year of birth: 1944
Application approved: 03.07.2018
Estimated net worth: $2.3bn
Info: Brother of Najib Mikati, prime minister of Lebanon (2011-2014).
Taha and Najib share a business empire which began selling satellite phones at the height of the Lebanese civil war.
Today they share ownership of the M1 group, which owns stakes in South African telecom firm MTN and real estate in New York, London and Monaco.
Related applicants: Three of Mikati’s family members also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Alexei Ananiev
Russia 🇷🇺
Алексей Ананьев
Year of birth: 1964
Application approved: 07.03.2017
Estimated net worth: $1.4bn
Info: Alexei Ananiev’s fortunes have changed since he was named in Forbes’ 2017 Billionaires List
He was placed on Russia’s international wanted list in September 2019, along with his brother Dmitry, who also acquired Cypriot citizenship in 2017. The Ananievs were charged with embezzlement and money laundering at Promsvyazbank, the bank they founded together.
Dmitry held political office as a senator between 2006 and 2013.
Both brothers have also been targeted by Ukrainian sanctions since March 2019.
Related applicants: Alexei’s son, Nikolay, and Dmitry also acquired Cypriot citizenship through the scheme.
Galina Antipina
Russia 🇷🇺
Галина Антипина
Year of birth: 1959
Application approved: 13.04.2018
Info: Held political office as a deputy for Villozsky Rural Settlement (2009-2014).
Related applicants: Her husband, Leonid Kvasniuk, head of LenRusStroy construction company, also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Ali Beglov
Russia 🇷🇺
Али Беглов
Also known as: Alik Tartarin, “Алик Татарин”
Year of birth: 1961
Application approved: 19.12.2018
Info: Former director-general of Lukoil-Bunker.
Served a two-year prison sentence for extortion (1990-1992).
In 2007, Beglov attended the funeral of notorious St Petersburg gangster, Artur Kzhizhevich.
Related applicants: His wife also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Vitaly Buzoverya
Russia 🇷🇺
Виталий Бузоверя
Year of birth: 1974
Application approved: 22.05.2018
Info: Senior vice president of the state-owned Russian bank VTB, sanctioned by the United States and the EU following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Buzoverya is one of three senior executives from the bank who gained Cypriot passports on the same day and all invested in the Coral Seas property development.
Related applicants: Buzoverya’s wife also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Evgeniy Dod
Russia 🇷🇺
Евгений Дод
Year of birth: 1973
Application approved: 28.09.2016
Info: Executive-director of RusHydro (2009-2015), where he was a “Representative of the Russian Federation”.
Related applicants: His wife and child also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Vitaly Evdokimenko
Russia 🇷🇺
Виталий Евдокименко
Year of birth: 1962
Application approved: 19.03.2018
Info: CEO of Russian Federal Freight Company, a subsidiary of the state-owned Russian Railways (2010-2015).
Related applicants: His wife and two children also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Nikolay Gornovskiy
Russia 🇷🇺
Николай Горновский
Year of birth: 1958
Application approved: 10.06.2019
Info: Former Gazprom executive, wanted by Russia on abuse of power charges. Fled to the UK, from where Russia has repeatedly tried and failed to have him extradited.
Mikhail Yurevich
Russia 🇷🇺
Михаил Юрьевич
Year of birth: 1969
Application approved: 13.09.2016
Info: As a politician Yurevich held a seat in Russia’s State Duma before becoming the governor of the industrial Chelyabinsk Oblast region from 2010 to 2014.
In May 2017 he was put on Russia’s international wanted list, accused of accepting bribes from local ministers and businesses as well as slandering regional officials.
The Cyprus Papers reveal that Yurevich also sponsored his parents’ application for Cypriot citizenship in November 2017. They act as directors in his various companies.
Yurevich has also been subject to Ukrainian sanctions since May 2018.
Related applicants: His parents also acquired Cypriot citizenship on 01/12/2017
Timur Khayrutdinov
Russia 🇷🇺
Тимур Хайрутдинов
Year of birth: 1974
Application approved: 10.06.2019
Info: Trade representative of the Republic of Tatarstan in Dubai.
Related applicants: His wife also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Vladimir Khristenko
Russia 🇷🇺
Владимир Христенко
Year of birth: 1981
Application approved: 25.05.2018
Info: President of biopharmaceutical company Nanolek, which is currently developing a vaccine for Covid-19.
His stepmother, Tatyana Golikova, is currently one of the deputy prime ministers of Russia and a former aide to Vladimir Putin.
Khristenko’s father Viktor Khristenko also held various government roles, including deputy prime minister, minister of finance and minister of energy and industry. Viktor also served on the board of directors of several state-owned companies.
Related applicants: His wife also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Aleksei Kordichev
Russia 🇷🇺
Алексей Кордичев
Year of birth: 1978
Application approved: 23.10.2018
Info: As CEO of Siberia’s Vostochny Bank (2015-2017), Kordichev is one of six men accused of embezzling $37m from the bank’s shareholders.
He was arrested in Moscow on February 15, 2019 and as of May 2020, was still under house arrest.
Related applicants: His wife also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Alexey Kulichenko
Russia 🇷🇺
Алексей Куличенко
Year of birth: 1974
Application approved: 25.05.2018
Info: A senior executive of Russia’s third-largest steel company, Severstal, sanctioned by Ukraine following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Related applicants: His wife also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Alexander Lavlentsev
Russia 🇷🇺
Александр Лавленцев
Year of birth: 1957
Application approved: 08.02.2019
Info: Founder of construction firm ARKS.
Alexander’s son, Vladimir, was the deputy governor of St Petersburg between 2013 and 2014, and then the chief federal inspector of Moscow from 2015 to 2018.
Related applicants: His wife and daughter also acquired Cypriot passports.
Sergei Lomakin
Russia 🇷🇺
Сергей Ломакин
Year of birth: 1973
Application approved: 31.03.2018
Info: Founder and owner of FixPrice dollar stores and owner of Cypriot football club Pafos FC and current Latvian champions, Riga FC. Reportedly showed an interest in buying a stake in Arsenal.
Put on Russia’s Federal Wanted List in September 2016 and was subsequently charged with embezzlement of a loan of $123m.
Andrey Mityukov
Russia 🇷🇺
Андрей Митюков
Year of birth: 1967
Application approved: 25.05.2018
Info: Mityukov is on the board of directors at Russian steel company, Severstal, which has been sanctioned by Ukraine since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Andrey Molchanov
Russia 🇷🇺
Андрей Молчанов
Year of birth: 1971
Application approved: 04.10.2017
Estimated net worth: $850m
Info: Represented the Leningrad Region in Russia’s upper chamber of parliament (2008-2013).
In January 2018, Molchanov made the United States Treasury’s “Oligarchs List” of persons who are close to Vladimir Putin.
His father, Yuri Molchanov, was the KGB resident at Leningrad State University, where Vladimir Putin worked as his assistant in 1990. They later became business partners.
Related applicants: Andrey’s son and mother also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Vadim Moshkovich
Russia 🇷🇺
Вадим Мошкович
Year of birth: 1967
Application approved: 15.02.2017
Estimated net worth: $1.7bn
Info: Member of the Federation Council, the upper chamber of Russia’s parliament, until October 2015.
Currently chairman of farming conglomerate Rusagro and reportedly Russia’s 57th richest person.
In 2018, Moshkovich made the United States Treasury’s “Oligarchs List” of persons who are close to Vladimir Putin.
Related applicants: His son, Evgeni, also acquired a Cypriot passport.
Damir Muginov
Russia 🇷🇺
Дамир Мугинов
Year of birth: 1966
Application approved: 27.12.2018
Info: In the same month that he received his Cypriot passport, Muginov became the focus of a criminal prosecution for land fraud.
A year later in July 2019, a district judge dropped the case against him without explanation.
Yury Obodovsky
Russia 🇷🇺
Юрий Ободовский
Year of birth: 1970
Application approved: 07.05.2019
Info: Obodovsky is reportedly close to the former president of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin, who is himself a long-time associate of Vladimir Putin.
Added to a Russian wanted list in October 2018 accused of paying bribes to cover up corrupt business contracts with state companies including Russian Railways.
Reportedly hiding out in “one of the most luxurious resorts in the United States”.
Under investigation when he acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Andrey Oskolkov
Russia 🇷🇺
Андрей Осколков
Year of birth: 1964
Application approved: 23.10.2018
Info: Deputy of the state council for Russia’s Udmurt Republic (1999-2017).
Co-owner of the agro-industrial holdings company, Komos Group. In 2017 he was ranked 33rd in a Forbes list of Russia’s wealthy and powerful civil servants.
Related applicants: His wi
Maxim Poletaev
Russia 🇷🇺
Максим Полетаев
Year of birth: 1971
Application approved: 26.04.2017
Info: Deputy chairman of Sberbank until 2018. The Russian bank has been the target of US sanctions since September 2014.
Poletaev left Sberbank for RUSAL, an aluminium company owned by billionaire Oleg Deripaska.
Related applicants: Poletaev also sponsored his mother’s and and son’s application for Cypriot passports.
Andrey Puchkov
Russia 🇷🇺
Андрей Пучков
Year of birth: 1969
Application approved: 23.07.2018
Info: Former co-owner of real estate development company Urban Group.
A year after he received Cypriot citizenship, Puchkov fled Russia and was charged in absentia with abuse of power and defrauding investors in a failed building project.
Related applicants: Puchkov also bought Cypriot citizenship for his wife.
Igor Reva
Russia 🇷🇺
Игорь Рева
Year of birth: 1972
Application approved: 03.07.2018
Info: Russia’s deputy minister of economic development (2014-2017).
Related applicants: Reva’s wife also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Rishat Safin
Russia 🇷🇺
Ришат Сафин
Year of birth: 1963
Application approved: 27.09.2017
Info: Formerly held directorships at various oil companies including a subsidiary of Russian giant, Lukoil. He then shortly pursued a career as a pop musician.
His brother, Ralif Safin, was senator for the Siberian republic of Altai (2002-2014). He is reported to be one of Russia’s 200 richest businesspeople, with an estimated net worth of $500m.
Related applicants: Rishat’s wife and two children also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Alexey Soldatov
Russia 🇷🇺
Алексей Солдатов
Year of birth: 1951
Application approved: 07.05.2019
Info: Known as “Russia’s Steve Jobs”, Soldatov founded internet service provider Relcom in 1992 and was deputy minister of communications and mass media between (2008-2010).
In December 2019 Soldatov was placed under house arrest and charged with fraud on an especially large scale.
Related applicants: His wife also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Oleg Tinkov
Russia 🇷🇺
Олег Тиньков
Year of birth: 1967
Application approved: 24.04.2018
Estimated net worth: $2.6bn
Info: Founder of Tinkoff Bank, one of the world’s largest online banks, with around 8 million customers in Russia.
In March 2020 Tinkoff was indicted by a US court for filing false tax returns. He is alleged to have concealed $1bn of assets and income.
He was arrested in London and reportedly released on a bail of £20m (approximately $26.4m).
Tinkov is currently in the UK, receiving treatment for Leukaemia. An extradition hearing has been rescheduled for September 2020.
According to Forbes his wealth has increased by 63% during the Covid-19 pandemic from an estimated at $1.6bn to $2.6bn.
Related applicants: Tinkov sponsored the application of his son, who acquired Cypriot citizenship on 23.10.2018.
Victoria Vanurina
Russia 🇷🇺
Виктория Ванурина
Year of birth: 1972
Application approved: 22.05.2018
Info: Member of the management board at VTB Bank. The state-owned bank has been targeted by US sanctions since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Vanurina is one of three senior executives from the bank who were all approved for Cypriot passports on the same day. They all invested in the Coral Seas property development.
Related applicants: Her husband also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Alexei Yakovitsky
Russia 🇷🇺
Алексей Яковицкий
Year of birth: 1975
Application approved: 22.05.2018
Info: CEO of VTB Capital PLC. The state-owned bank has been targeted by US sanctions since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Yakovitsky is one of three senior executives from the bank who were all approved for Cypriot passports on the same day and all invested in the Coral Seas property development.
Related applicants: His wife also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Andrey Zhupanov
Russia 🇷🇺
Андрей Жупанов
Year of birth: 1971
Application approved: 19.12.2018
Info: Former deputy chairman of Promsvyazbank. Member of the board of directors of Vozrozhdenie Bank.
Two weeks after his Cypriot citizenship was confirmed, Promsvyazbank filed a lawsuit against Zhupanov and nine other former managers of the bank, along with the bank’s former owners, Dmitry and Alexei Ananiev, to recuperate $3.8bn.
The action against Zhupanov personally amounts to $562m.
Related applicants: Zhupanov’s wife, Maria Ochirova, acquired Cypriot citizenship. Her father was chief consultant to the minister of internal affairs and her mother sits on the public council of the FSB, Russia’s secret service.
Mohammed A. H. Jameel
Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦
Year of birth: 1958
Application approved: 07.05.2018
Estimated net worth: $5bn
Info: Board member of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority, a government body.
Jameel was awarded an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth in 2014.
Dual citizenship is only allowed under Saudi law with official government approval.
Khalid Ahmed Al Juffali
Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦
Year of birth: 1958
Application approved: 18.09.2018
Info: Member of the board of directors, Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency. Chairman of E. A. Juffali and Brothers, the largest privately-owned enterprise in Saudi Arabia.
Chairman of “KJC”, a privately held investment company which mainly operates in New York City.
Related applicants: Three of Juffali’s children also acquired Cypriot passports.
Dual citizenship is only allowed under Saudi law with official government approval.
Hussain Alnowais
United Arab Emirates 🇦🇪
Year of birth: 1956
Application approved: 07.05.2019
Info: Senior executive of several state-owned enterprises. On the board of directors of state-owned Emirates Steel and National Petroleum Construction Company “NPCC”.
Highly influential with close links to Abu Dhabi’s ruling family, he has negotiated trade agreements on behalf of the UAE government.
Dual citizenship is not recognised in the laws of the UAE and obtaining a second citizenship is grounds for the involuntary loss of UAE citizenship.
Oleg Bakhmatyuk
Ukraine 🇺🇦
Олег Бахматюк
Year of birth: 1974
Application approved: 25.05.2018
Estimated net wort: $1bn (2011)
Info: Former owner of VAB Bank and CEO of Ukrlandfarming Plc, Ukraine’s largest agricultural company.
Placed on a wanted list on November 22, 2019, for embezzlement of around $43m from the National Bank of Ukraine. Bakhmatyuk denies all the charges and says that the criminal case against him is “a complete fabrication and politically motivated”.
Bakhmatyuk was arrested in absentia in May 2020.
A month later the General Prosecutor’s Office was ordered to close the criminal case against him. That decision has since been overturned and the case reopened.
He remains on the wanted list.
Related applicants: Oleg’s sister, Natalia Vasilyuk, who holds senior positions in his companies, also acquired Cypriot citizenship on the same day.
Under Ukrainian law it is illegal to hold a second citizenship
Liudmila Lebedeva
Ukraine 🇺🇦
Людмила Лебедєва
Year of birth: 1965
Application approved: 31.01.2018
Info: Wife of Ukraine’s former defence minister, Pavlo Lebedev.
Pavlo is now a defendant in several criminal cases in Ukraine and lives in Russia-occupied Crimea. He is accused of using security forces to suppress the 2014 Euromaidan protests as well as stealing billions of dollars of military property and equipment between 2004 and 2014.
Related applicants: Their daughter also acquired Cypriot citizenship. Both she and Liudmila are joint owners of companies in Crimea.
Under Ukrainian law it is illegal to hold a second citizenship.
Vadim Shulman
Ukraine 🇺🇦
Вадим Шульман
Year of birth: 1960
Application approved: 11.07.2019
Info: Oligarch who made his money in chemicals and telecoms. Shulman has headed Ukraine’s tennis federation and even paid for an auditorium named after him at Oxford University.
In July 2019 he was placed on a wanted list for money laundering, just two weeks after his Cypriot passport was approved. The Paradise Papers also reveal Shulman’s network of offshore companies.
Shulman also holds Russian and Israeli citizenship.
Under Ukrainian law it is illegal to hold a second citizenship.
Natalia Vasylyuk
Ukraine 🇺🇦
Наталія Василюк
Year of birth: 1983
Application approved: 25.05.2018
Info: CEO and on the board of directors of Avangard Agrico, Europe’s largest producer of chicken eggs.
The company was founded by her brother, Oleg Bakhmatyuk, who also appears in the Cyprus Papers. As former head of the supervisory board of VAB Bank, she was placed on a wanted list on November 22, 2019 for assisting her brother with embezzlement and money laundering amounting to around $43m.
She acquired Cypriot citizenship on the same day as Bakhmatyuk.
Under Ukrainian law it is illegal to hold a second citizenship.
Anatoly Yakovynets
Ukraine 🇺🇦
Анатолій Яковинець
Year of birth: 1966
Application approved: 07.03.2017
Info: First deputy chief of Ukraine’s tax police (2011-2014).
Head of financial investigations, Ministry of Revenue and Duties (2013).
Related applicants: Yakovynet’s daughter also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Under Ukrainian law it is illegal to hold a second citizenship.
Mykola Zlochevsky
Ukraine 🇺🇦
Микола Злочевський
Year of birth: 1966
Application approved:: 01.12.2017
Estimated net Worth: $535m (2017)
Info: Minister for Natural Resources (2010-2012).
Member of the Security and Defence Council (2012-2014).
He has also been on a Russian sanctions list since November 2018
Owns Ukrainian gas and oil producers through his Cyprus registered company Burisma Holdings.
Zlochevsky has been investigated since 2012 for money laundering, tax evasion and since 2018 for theft of government funds.
In June 2020 Ukraine’s anti-corruption squad seized $6m of cash, which they claim was intended to bribe officials to close their investigation into Burisma.
Related applicants: Mykola’s daughters, Anna and Karina, also acquired Cypriot passports.
Under Ukrainian law it is illegal to hold a second citizenship.
Volodymyr Zubyk
Ukraine 🇺🇦
Володимир Зубик
Year of birth: 1958
Application approved: 09.10.2018
Estimated net Worth: $95m (Forbes, 2020)
Info: Member of Ukraine’s national assembly the Verkhovna Rada (2006-2019), meaning he was an elected official at the time he acquired his Cypriot citizenship.
Related applicants: Zubyk’s wife and daughter also acquired Cypriot passports.
Under Ukrainian law it is illegal to hold a second citizenship.
Leonardo González Dellán
Venezuela 🇻🇪
Year of birth: 1966
Application approved: 04.01.2019
Info: A former president of Banco Industrial de Venezuela, Dellan was sanctioned by the United States on January 8, 2019, four days after his golden passport was approved.
He is described as a “testaferro”, a front person for the Venezuelan state, accused of helping launder $2.4bn.
Phạm Phú Quốc
Vietnam 🇻🇳
Year of birth: 1969
Application approved: 12.12.2018
Info: Pham is chair of the board of one of Vietnam’s biggest trade companies, IPC.
He is also a member of Congress for Ho Chi Minh city.
Related applicants: Pham’s wife also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Vietnamese politicians are banned from holding dual citizenship.
Phạm Nhật Vũ
Vietnam 🇻🇳
Year of birth: 1973
Application approved: 06.05.2019
Info: Brother of “Vietnam’s first billionaire”, Pham Nhat Vu was charged and facing trial for bribery when his Cypriot passport was approved in May 2019. He was subsequently convicted and is currently serving a three year jail sentence in Vietnam.
Related applicants: His wife also acquired Cypriot citizenship.
Become a Patron! True Information is the most valuable resource and we ask you to give back
I am a former Google employee and I am writing this to leak information to the public of what I witnessed and took part in while being an employee. My position was to deal with AdSense accounts, more specifically the accounts of publishers (not advertisers). I was employed at Google for a period of several years in this capacity.
Having signed many documents such as NDA’s and non-competes, there are many repercussions for me, especially in the form of legal retribution from Google. I have carefully planned this leak to coincide with certain factors in Google such as waiting for the appropriate employee turn around so that my identity could not be discovered.
To sum it up for everyone, I took part in what I (and many others) would consider theft of money from the publishers by Google, and from direct orders of management. There were many AdSense employees involved, and it spanned many years, and I hear it still is happening today except on a much wider scale. No one on the outside knows it, if they did, the FBI and possibly IRS would immediately launch an investigation, because what they are doing is so inherently illegal and they are flying completely under the radar.
It began in 2009. Everything was perfectly fine prior to 2009, and in fact it couldn’t be more perfect from an AdSense employees perspective, but something changed.
Google Bans and Ban Criteria
Before December 2012:
In the first quarter of 2009 there was a “sit-down” from the AdSense division higher ups to talk about new emerging issues and the role we (the employees in the AdSense division needed to play. It was a very long meeting, and it was very detailed and intense. What it boiled down to was that Google had suffered some very serious losses in the financial department several months earlier. They kept saying how we “needed to tighten the belts” and they didn’t want it to come from Google employees pockets. So they were going to (in their words) “carry out extreme quality control on AdSense publishers”. When one of my fellow co-workers asked what they meant by that. Their response was that AdSense itself hands out too many checks each month to publishers, and that the checks were too large and that needed to end right away. Many of the employees were not pleased about this (like myself). But they were successful in scaring the rest into thinking it would be their jobs and their money that would be on the line if they didn’t participate. The meeting left many confused as to how this was going to happen. What did they mean by extreme quality control? A few other smaller meetings occur with certain key people in the AdSense division that furthered the idea and procedure they planned on implementing. There were lots of rumors and quiet talking amongst the employees, there was lots of speculations, some came true and some didn’t. But the word was that they were planning to cut off a large portion of publisher’s payments.
After that point there was a running gag amongst fellow co-workers where we would walk by each other and whisper “Don’t be evil, pft!” and roll our eyes.
What happened afterwards became much worse. Their “quality control” came into full effect. Managers pushed for wide scale account bans, and the first big batch of bans happened in March of 2009. The main reason, the publishers made too much money. But something quite devious happened. We were told to begin banning accounts that were close to their payout period (which is why account bans never occur immediately after a payout). The purpose was to get that money owed to publishers back to Google AdSense, while having already served up the ads to the public.
This way the advertiser’s couldn’t claim we did not do our part in delivering their ads and ask for money back. So in a sense, we had thousands upon thousands of publishers deliver ads we knew they were never going to get paid for.
Google reaped both sides of the coin, got money from the advertisers, used the publishers, and didn’t have to pay them a single penny. We were told to go and look into the publishers accounts, and if any publisher had accumulated earnings exceeding $5000 and was near a payout or in the process of a payout, we were to ban the account right away and reverse the earnings back. They kept saying it was needed for the company, and that most of these publishers were ripping Google off anyways, and that their gravy train needed to end. Many employees were not happy about this. A few resigned over it. I did not. I stayed because I had a family to support, and secondly I wanted to see how far they would go.
From 2009 to 2012 there were many more big batches of bans. The biggest of all the banning sessions occurred in April of 2012. The AdSense division had enormous pressure from the company to make up for financial losses, and for Google’s lack of reaching certain internal financial goals for the quarter prior. So the push was on. The employees felt really uneasy about the whole thing, but we were threatened with job losses if we didn’t enforce the company’s wishes. Those who voiced concerned or issue were basically ridiculed with “not having the company’s best interest in mind” and not being “team players”. Morale in the division was at an all-time low. The mood of the whole place changed quite rapidly. It no longer was a fun place to work.
The bans of April 2012 came fast and furious. Absolutely none of them were investigated, nor were they justified in any way. We were told to get rid of as many of the accounts with the largest checks/payouts/earnings waiting to happen. No reason, just do it, and don’t question it. It was heart wrenching seeing all that money people had earned all get stolen from them. And that’s what I saw it as, it was a robbery of the AdSense publishers. Many launched appeals, complaints, but it was futile because absolutely no one actually took the time to review the appeals or complaints. Most were simply erased without even being opened, the rest were deposited into the database, never to be touched again.
Several publishers launched legal actions which were settled, but Google had come up with a new policy to deal with situations such as that because it was perceived as a serious problem to be avoided. So they came up with a new policy.
After December 2012: The New Policy
The new policy; “shelter the possible problem makers, and fuck the rest” (those words were actually said by a Google AdSense exec) when he spoke about the new procedure and policy for “Account Quality Control”.
The new policy was officially called AdSense Quality Control Color Codes (commonly called AQ3C by employees). What it basically was a categorization of publisher accounts. Those publisher’s that could do the most damage by having their account banned were placed in a VIP group that was to be left alone. The rest of the publishers would be placed into other groupings accordingly. The new AQ3C also implemented “quality control” quotas for the account auditors, so if you didn’t meet the “quality control” target (aka account bans) you would be called in for a performance review. There were four “groups” publishers could fall into if they reached certain milestones.
They were:
Red Group: Urgent Attention Required Any AdSense account that reaches the $10,000/month mark is immediately flagged (unless they are part of the Green Group). – In the beginning there were many in this category, and most were seen as problematic and were seen as abusing the system by Google. So every effort was taken to bring their numbers down. – They are placed in what employees termed “The Eagle Eye”, where the “AdSense Eagle Eye Team” would actively and constantly audit their accounts and look for any absolute reason for a ban. Even if the reason was far-fetched, or unsubstantiated, and unprovable, the ban would occur. The “Eagle Eye Team” referred to a group of internal account auditors whose main role was to constantly monitor publisher’s accounts and sites. – A reason has to be internally attached to the account ban. The problem was that notifying the publisher for the reason is not a requirement, even if the publisher asks. The exception: The exact reason must be provided if a legal representative contacts Google on behalf of the account holder. – But again, if a ban is to occur, it must occur as close to a payout period as possible with the most amount of money accrued/earned.
Yellow Group: Serious Attention Required Any AdSense account that reaches the $5,000/month mark is flagged for review (unless they are part of the Green Group). – All of the publisher’s site(s)/account will be placed in queue for an audit. – Most of the time the queue is quite full so most are delayed their audit in a timely fashion. – The second highest amount of bans occur at this level. – A reason has to be internally attached to the account ban. Notifiying the publisher for the reason is not a requirement, even if the publisher asks. The exception: The exact reason must be provided if a legal representative contacts Google on behalf of the account holder. – But again, if a ban is to occur, it must occur as close to a payout period as possible with the most amount of money accrued/earned.
Blue Group: Moderate Attention Required Any AdSense account that reaches the $1,000/month mark is flagged for possible review (unless they are part of the Green Group). – Only the main site and account will be place in queue for what is called a quick audit. – Most bans that occur happen at this level. Main reason is that a reason doesn’t have to be attached to the ban, so the employees use these bans to fill their monthly quotas. So many are simply a random pick and click. – A reason does not have to be internally attached to the account ban. Notifying the publisher for the reason is not a requirement, even if the publisher asks. – But again, if a ban is to occur, it must occur as close to a payout period as possible with the most amount of money accrued.
Green Group: VIP Status (what employees refer to as the “untouchables”) Any AdSense account associated with an incorporated entity or individual that can inflict serious damage onto Google by negative media information, rallying large amounts of anti-AdSense support, or cause mass loss of AdSense publisher support. – Google employees wanting to use AdSense on their websites were automatically placed in the Green group. So the database contained many Google insiders and their family members. If you work or worked for Google and were placed in the category, you stayed in it, even if you left Google. So it included many former employees. Employees simply had to submit a form with site specific details and their account info. – Sites in the Green Group were basically given “carte blanche” to do anything they wanted, even if they flagrantly went against the AdSense TOS and Policies. That is why you will encounter sites with AdSense, but yet have and do things completely against AdSense rules. – Extra care is taken not to interrupt or disrupt these accounts. – If an employee makes a mistake with a Green Level account they can lose their job. Since it seen as very grievous mistake.
New Policy 2012 Part 2:
Internal changes to the policy were constant. They wanted to make it more efficient and streamlined. They saw its current process as having too much human involvement and oversight. They wanted it more automated and less involved.
So the other part of the new policy change was to incorporate other Google services into assisting the “quality control” program. What they came up with will anger many users when they find out. It involved skewing data in Google Analytics. They decided it was a good idea to alter the statistical data shown for websites. It first began with just altering data reports for Analytics account holders that also had an AdSense account, but they ran into too many issues and decided it would be simpler just to skew the report data across the board to remain consistent and implement features globally. So what this means is that the statistical data for a website using Google Analytics is not even close to being accurate. The numbers are incredibly deflated. The reasoning behind their decision is that if an individual links their AdSense account and their Analytics account, the Analytics account can be used to deflate the earnings automatically without any human intervention. They discovered that if an individual had an AdSense account then they were also likely to use Google Analytics. So Google used it to their advantage.
This led to many publishers to actively display ads, without earning any money at all (even to this day). Even if their actual website traffic was high, and had high click-throughs the data would be automatically skewed in favor of Google, and at a total loss of publishers. This successfully made it almost impossible for anyone to earn amounts even remotely close what individuals with similar sites were earning prior to 2012, and most definitely nowhere near pre-2009 earnings. Other policy changes also included how to deal with appeals, which still to this day, the large majority are completely ignored, and why you will rarely get an actual answer as to why your account was banned and absolutely no way to resolve it.
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The BIG Problem (which Google is aware of) There is an enormous problem that existed for a long time in Google’s AdSense accounts. Many of the upper management are aware of this problem but do not want to acknowledge or attempt to come up with a solution to the problem.
It is regarding false clicks on ads. Many accounts get banned for “invalid clicks” on ads. In the past this was caused by a publisher trying to self inflate click-throughs by clicking on the ads featured on their website. The servers automatically detect self-clicking with comparison to IP addresses and other such information, and the persons account would get banned for invalid clicking.
But there was something forming under the surface. A competitor or malicious person would actively go to their competitor’s website(s) or pick a random website running AdSense and begin multiple-clicking and overclicking ads, which they would do over and over again. Of course this would trigger an invalid clicking related ban, mainly because it could not be proven if the publisher was actually behind the clicking. This was internally referred to as “Click-Bombing”. Many innocent publishers would get caught up in bans for invalid clicks which they were not involved in and were never told about.
This issue has been in the awareness of Google for a very long time but nothing was done to rectify the issue and probably never will be. Thus if someone wants to ruin a Google AdSense publishers account, all you would have to do is go to their website, and start click-bombing their Google Ads over and over again, it will lead the servers to detect invalid clicks and poof, they get banned. The publisher would be completely innocent and unaware of the occurrence but be blamed for it anyways.
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Their BIG Fear The biggest fear that Google has about these AdSense procedures and policies is that it will be publicly discovered by their former publishers who were banned, and that those publishers unite together and launch an class-action lawsuit.
They also fear those whose primary monthly earnings are from AdSense, because in many countries if a person claims the monthly amount to their tax agency and they state the monthly amount and that they are earning money from Google on a monthly basis, in certain nations technically Google can be seen as an employer. Thus, an employer who withholds payment of earnings, can be heavily fined by government bodies dealing with labor and employment. And if these government bodies dealing with labor and employment decide to go after Google, then it would get very ugly, very quickly ….. that is on top of a class-action lawsuit.
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