NEW: An oil deal helped catapult Todd Kozel, co-founder of Gulf Keystone, to a new level of wealth, leading to a life of private jets, fine wines, and strippers.
But a bitter divorce brought him tumbling back to earth and exposed a kickback deal. 1/ occrp.org/en/investigati…
The US-Iraq war changed the fortune of Gulf Keystone after it signed a deal with Kurdistan to develop its “oil field of dreams.” On the very same day, it inked a deal to give a Kurdistan politician potentially huge kickbacks, in return for “government relations services.” 2/
Kozel’s lavish lifestyle came back to haunt him. His wife divorced him after his affair with a Lithuanian model. The court case revealed his excesses and led to charges including money laundering. 3/
An offshore trust in Jersey, a U.K. dependency, bought shares in Gulf Keystone just before its big discovery. Court papers show it was secretly getting instructions from Kozel. He has pleaded guilty to failure to file tax returns and now faces a $22m tax bill and prison time. 4/
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NEW: Dangerously polluting oil is being used to heat hospitals, schools, and public institutions across North Macedonia 🇲🇰
Our investigation into this threat to public health and the companies that profited from it. 1/ occrp.org/en/investigati…
Early in 2019 a video of black smoke billowing out of a Skopje maternity hospital surfaced on social media.
People in North Macedonia, which has grappled with air pollution for decades, were shocked. We decided to see what caused these foul-smelling plumes 👇 2/
Contracts showed this hospital, and many other public buildings, were burning heavy fuel oil in their heating systems.
All had bought it from Evrotim — a North Macedonian company with no logo, website, or office, but with ties to a powerful politician and businessman. 3/
NEW: Amid widespread food shortages, Turkmenistan’s president handed a lucrative food import contract to a firm that, we reveal, is controlled by his nephew.
This is the first documented evidence tying the young man’s wealth to his uncle. 💸 🇹🇲 1/ occrp.org/en/investigati…
Turkmenistan's food crisis began in 2016, when Russia abruptly stopped buying its natural gas.
To alleviate the shortages, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov ordered the gov’t to contract 7 foreign firms to import food. Several of them raise questions. 2/
The largest contract, worth $25.7m, went to Greatcom Trade LLP.
Though the firm is based in the U.K., its ultimate beneficial owner is Hajymyrat Rejepov, the president’s nephew. 3/
Criminals and corrupt officials from around the world love to park their ill-gotten gains in the West. It’s one of the main ways the global financial system enables wrongdoing.
This explainer provides a snapshot of how the UK’s 'unexplained wealth orders' — a major investigative tool against illicit foreign wealth — have functioned since their introduction 3 years ago.
NEW: Argentina’s former first family, the Macris, made a secret deal with a disgraced Austrian bank. The deal helped the bank manipulate other creditors in an infamous postal service bankruptcy case.
The Macris acquired Correo Argentino, the state postal service, before leading it into receivership. A previously hidden audit of Meinl bank shows how the Macri patriarch, Franco, later secretly gave Meinl control of Correo’s debts in a deal that raised suspicions in Austria. 2/
While the Macris were negotiating with creditors, the audit shows, the ties between them and Meinl were multiplying.
Once the secret deal was struck, Meinl started to make decisions that seemed to favor the Macris ahead of itself. 3/
NEW: As part of an effort to uncover the truth behind the murder of Mexican journalist #ReginaMartinez — who was killed on this day 9 yrs ago — OCCRP is releasing 1000s of records related to the investigation.
NEW: With Reza Zarrab expected to testify in a US court for helping Iran evade sanctions, we show how the money launderer was just a cog in a larger scheme involving the Turkish gov’t and transactions with major global banks. #WhoBankedForIran 1/ occrp.org/en/how-iran-us…
Who is Reza Zarrab? The money launderer will be a key witness in the US prosecution of Turkish state-owned Halkbank, which is accused of knowingly facilitating Zarrab’s sanction-busting scheme in the 2010s.
Testimony from Zarrab and an exclusive interview with his ex-deputy indicate that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was behind the sanction-busting scheme.