Thread by @MackPolitical

@DrewOCCRP:  Mafia states themselves are fairly rare. If you refer to kleptocracies, those are very common.

@KaplanDave:  Kleptocracies — government by theft, in other words.

DS:  Yes, that’s quite common. There are many kleptocracies. Unfortunately, it’s a majority of the…

@KaplanDave: What about Afghanistan? Here’s a country now controlled by a group branded as terrorist, likely to become a major arms dealer, heroin supplier, and all-around rogue state.

#Afghanistan

@KaplanDave: When you see US law enforcement go after organized crime, they build a case under anti-racketeering law that indicts the group as a “continuing criminal enterprise.” But if we really applied that definition, we could indict much of the world.

“We live in a corrupt world where there are trillions of dollars annually that are illicitly changing hands.” - @KaplanDave

“I wouldn’t send the State Department to negotiate with Putin. I’d send the FBI.” - @DrewOCCRP

@DrewOCCRP: We think of all politicians as motivated to be great leaders but what if their real goal is state capture or to be criminal? What if their goal is to use democracy to capture the state?  That’s the goal of many politicians, including the Republican Party in the US…

@KaplanDave: That’s a good description of what’s going on with companies engaged in payoffs to grab market share and resources. But I think there’s another category of, say, the pharmaceutical industry, in the way that it fostered the opiate epidemic in the United States.

@DrewOCCRP: You can have ongoing criminal conspiracies by many types of businesses, because once you go into the world market, there’s no global law… You can pressure the BVI to expose who is behind something, but you can’t pressure Russia, or China, or Turkey…

@DrewOCCRP: Any kind of natural resource is an industry you want to look at, because that’s the only thing that these autocrats — or the mafia states — can make money off of.

#FollowTheMoney 💰

@KaplanDave: Is London’s financial industry a criminal enterprise?

@DrewOCCRP:  Yes, part of it. Offshore money may be the majority of the money that greases the city and much of that is criminal. That’s why so many Russian oligarchs rejoiced at Brexit.

@KaplanDave: What about the US? The US doesn’t aggressively prosecute money laundering.

@DrewOCCRP:  Right. It’s the legalization of corruption. They’ve legalized aspects of corruption because people make money off of it. Hedge funds may be the largest vehicle on Earth…

@KaplanDave: Can you give some examples of countries you would call mafia states?

@DrewOCCRP:  Montenegro is a good example. It’s a small country — only 600,000 people – and was run by someone whose first job in life was Prime Minister. He had close ties through his brother…

@KaplanDave: What about Duterte’s Philippines, where the state has used extrajudicial killings in a systematic way?

@DrewOCCRP:  It’s corruption, and it’s a violation of human rights, but Duterte has fairly small connections to criminal activity.

#Philippines
#NorthKorea

@DrewOCCRP: Putin uses them, too — he arrested a lot of the major organized crime figures in Russia. And then he released them. We suspect the agreement was “You now work for me.” The murder squads sometimes are organized crime people, who go out on behalf of Russia.

#MafiaState

@KaplanDave: Let’s move to tips and tools here. Is investigating a mafia state qualitatively different than, say, investigating a crime cartel?

@DrewOCCRP:  It’s easier in many ways. Because you still have state records, documents, tenders, companies, you have information.

“Money in an organized crime gang will be from an illegal trade like drugs. In a government, it’s going to be state contracts. Who gets the right to drill oil? Who gets the right to cut down trees? Who owns the phone company? This tells you who are the favorite people”-@DrewOCCRP

@KaplanDave: What kind of records are you using? Corporate registries?

@DrewOCCRP: Corporate registries, land records, property records. France just made its property records available online — we’re finding all sorts of interesting names in there.

#FollowTheMoney💰

@KaplanDave: What are the ethics of using material that was gained illegally?

@DrewOCCRP:  It’s questionable, but we’re not soliciting this kind of stuff. We’re not asking anybody to give it to us. We’re taking material that has been made publicly available. We only use it if…

@KaplanDave: What about face-to-face source development? How important is that still?

@DrewOCCRP:  It’s still very important. Investigative reporting hasn’t changed. The problem is a lot of young people don’t know these old skills.

@DrewOCCRP:  We use a Wiki system to share information and collaborate on stories. We use Signal for secure discussion between us. So, it’s fairly simple. There needs to be better tools to do this, but between Signal, a Wiki, and Aleph, we coordinate all of our projects, and…

@DrewOCCRP:  All the big corruption and organized crime stories are cross-border now. So more than ever, it’s critical to have a team with a lot of different expertise. You need local reporters. Cybersecurity reporters. Researchers. Social media experts. Data people…

@KaplanDave: Do you think it’s harder for governments today to keep secrets?

@DrewOCCRP:  It is, because it’s so easy to communicate. Also, because many governments are so corrupt now, a lot of people are disturbed by what’s happening. And that’s where the leaking comes in…