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Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project Profile picture
@OCCRP
Sep 1, 2020 • 11 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
NEW: Meet #GroupAmerica, one of the most pervasive and violent drug-trafficking gangs you’ve never heard of.

Some say its name stems from rumored ties between the gang's leaders and the US government — maybe even the CIA. 1/
occrp.org/en/group-ameri…
In the 1980s, a Serb took control of the Westies, a New York Irish-American gang that became Group America.

Decades later, police around the world are impressed by the gang's global scope — and stunned that it remains active. 2/
occrp.org/en/group-ameri…
Unlike the cartels that control the whole cocaine supply chain, Group America specializes in being the middleman between sellers in Europe and producers in South America — where the gang’s second-in-command may be in prison for life. 3/
occrp.org/en/group-ameri…
OCCRP journalist Pavla Holcová (@pafak) had to pose as a prostitute to interview this notorious gangster in Peruvian prison.

Read her first-hand account of the conversation. 4/
occrp.org/en/group-ameri…
As the founder and editor of @investigacecz, our Czech member center, Holcová also investigated Group America’s influence in Slovakia — a coveted EU jurisdiction for traffickers in part because of lax residency laws. 5/
occrp.org/en/group-ameri…
Group America has operations in several countries, but much of its money is invested in Serbia, the gang’s center of operations since the fall of Yugoslavia. 6/ occrp.org/en/group-ameri…
But Group America’s influence in Serbia extends beyond drug money investments.

Its members were linked to acts of terrorism and assassinations against reformist politicians after the ouster of Slobodan Milošević.

Story reported by @StevanOCCRP 7/ occrp.org/en/group-ameri…
As Group America’s second-in-command sits in Peruvian prison, its leader continues to live comfortably in Queens, NY despite a drug trafficking indictment that has languished since 2003.

Federal officials declined comment on the unusual case. 8/ Miljanić’s row house in Que...
Despite his criminal reputation in Europe, Group America's leader Mileta Miljanić lives in the open in New York and in Serbia.

Here he is with Serbia’s foreign minister during a 2016 televised event in Manhattan. 9/ Image
More than one senior police source has attributed Group America’s success to ties with security and intelligence agencies.

Our reporting indicates that the gang may indeed have an "in" with the U.S. government. 10/
From terrorism in Belgrade to cocaine-trafficking on four continents.

Use this timeline for a tick-tock into Group America’s decades-long history of organized crime, which starts in New York in the 1970s. 11/
occrp.org/en/group-ameri…

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More from @OCCRP

Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project Profile picture
Jul 27
Canada is trying to deport Jimmy DeMaria, allegedly a senior figure in the "Siderno Group,” which authorities say is a Toronto-based branch of Italy’s ’Ndrangheta mafia. As @CBC reports, the case hinges on foreign wiretaps — raising questions about foreign interference and constitutional rights in Canada. cbc.ca/news/politics/…Image
@CBC cites two OCCRP reports about the Siderno Group, including our 2024 deep dive, in collaboratiion with the @TorontoStar, into how Italy’s ’Ndrangheta mafia allegedly used personal ties inside two major Canadian banks: ​​occrp.org/en/investigati…
One of the alleged leaders of the Toronto faction of the ’Ndrangheta was Italian immigrant Angelo Figliomeni, who appears to have had close relationships with employees at the Royal Bank of Canada and TD.

“You’re never busy for your banker. You know that, eh? Your accountant, your banker — even more important than the priest,” a financial planner at TD told Figliomeni’s senior associate.
Read 8 tweets
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project Profile picture
Jul 25
Canada is trying to deport Jimmy DeMaria, allegedly a senior figure in the "Siderno Group,” which authorities say is a Toronto-based branch of Italy’s ’Ndrangheta mafia. As @CBC reports, the case hinges on foreign wiretaps — raising questions about foreign interference and constitutional rights in Canada: cbc.ca/news/politics/…
@CBC cites two OCCRP reports about the Siderno Group, including our 2024 deep dive, in collaboratiion with the Toronto Star, into how Italy’s ’Ndrangheta mafia allegedly used personal ties inside two major Canadian banks: ​​occrp.org/en/investigati…
One of the alleged leaders of the Toronto faction of the ’Ndrangheta was Italian immigrant Angelo Figliomeni, who appears to have had close relationships with employees at the Royal Bank of Canada and TD.

“You’re never busy for your banker. You know that, eh? Your accountant, your banker — even more important than the priest,” a financial planner at TD told Figliomeni’s senior associate.
Read 8 tweets
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project Profile picture
Jun 10
NEW: The Telegram messaging app has a reputation for security — but @istories_media found that its technical infrastructure is run by a man whose companies closely collaborate with Russian intelligence services.

Meet Vladimir Vedeneev 👇 Image
Vedeneev founded GlobalNet, a Russian telecoms giant that controls infrastructure from Siberia to Western Europe. Its clients include:

🌐 A secretive Russian special service which helped plan the war in Ukraine
🌐 A Russian state-owned nuclear research lab
🌐 …and, until 2020, Telegram.
Another company founded by Vedeneev, Electrotelecom, still services Telegram today.

And the FSB is one of its most important government clients. Documents obtained by reporters show that the company manages equipment for a system that the FSB uses for surveillance occrp.org/en/investigati…
Read 9 tweets
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project Profile picture
May 16
🚗🥤What could go wrong on a summer road trip through the Balkans?

You're with your family, crossing a border — and suddenly you find you’ve been flagged by Interpol as an internationally wanted criminal.

That's what happened to Đurađ Trivunović, an ordinary citizen who had his identity stolen by a convicted drug trafficker belonging to the notorious Škaljari clan.Image
He wasn’t alone.

An investigation by @CINbih reveals that at least 60 members of powerful organized crime groups in the Balkans obtained Bosnian passports under false identities between 2013 and 2022 occrp.org/en/investigati…
How did they do it?

The criminals — or paid intermediaries — appear to have accessed a version of Bosnia’s identity database, allowing them to identify citizens who had never applied for ID documents.

They then forged ID cards in their names, and obtained other documents that enabled them to apply for government-issued passports.Image
Read 4 tweets
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project Profile picture
Apr 10
Frederik Obermaier @f_obermaier, co-founder of @paper_trail_m, has spent years investigating financial crime. As a result he doesn’t travel to Switzerland anymore. What’s the connection here?
“I do not want to risk being questioned by police … about my sources,” Frederik says. Under Switzerland’s draconian banking secrecy law — specifically, Article 47 of the Swiss Banking Act — even revealing that someone holds an account with a Swiss bank can lead to up to five years in prison. Sharing that truth with the public? A felony.
But many investigations about corruption and financial crime lead to Swiss banks and wealth managers. And when they do — as in the #SuisseSecrets collaboration, which started with a leak obtained by Frederik and his colleagues, or the story we jointly published yesterday on anti-money laundering lapses at Swiss bank Reyl — journalists shouldn’t be prevented from reporting on them.
Read 4 tweets
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project Profile picture
Apr 4
NEW: The UK has just sanctioned “Evrasia,” a Russian NGO that interfered in Moldova's elections with cold hard cash.

Run on behalf of Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor, it’s also building an anti-Western propaganda machine.

We've reported on the organization and how it works.👇 Image
Our investigation, based on reporting by a Moldovan partner, @cu_sens, shows that Evrazia is at once a propaganda vehicle, a conduit for illegal financial flows, and an election interference instrument: occrp.org/en/feature/a-r…
@cu_sens Behind it is Shor.

Convicted of massive corruption and exiled from Moldova, he's a sworn enemy of the country’s pro-Western president.

From Russia, he’s leading a movement that calls for Moldova to break with the EU.

Evrazia is part of that. Image
Read 9 tweets

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