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Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project Profile picture
@OCCRP
Feb 17, 2023 • 6 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
NEW: A reputation management firm called Eliminia has helped drug traffickers, fraudsters, and other criminal actors bury online reports of their crimes via intimidation and search engine manipulation, leaked documents show.
#StoryKillers occrp.org/en/storykiller…
2. Among the firm’s customers are:

💰 Convicted drug traffickers José Mestre Fernandez and José Nogueira García

💰 Russian-Georgian mafia money launderer Malchas Tetruashvili

💰 Italian firm Area S.p.A – fined for illegally sending equipment to the Syrian government
3. Eliminalia buried articles on clients’ misdeeds by manipulating search engines with fake news.

After Area S.p.A hired Eliminalia, articles flooded the internet on everything from K-Pop to blockchain mentioning the firm’s name, drowning out legitimate news reports. Image
4. Eliminalia also deployed intimidation tactics against journalists - including the OCCRP.

In 2019, editors received an email from an official-sounding email claiming an investigation violated EU privacy law. Eliminalia used the same domain to send legal threats to others. Image
5. Eliminalia’s official owner is Diego “Didac” Giménez Sanchez, a 30-year-old who described himself as a self-made businessman espousing the “right to be forgotten” online.

He is linked to over 50 companies - including business partnerships with his own criminal clients. Image
6. Sanchez also owns shares in multiple surrogacy businesses in Ukraine, along with a man convicted of sexually abusing Sánchez as a child.

These firms are accused of falsifying documents to smuggle babies out of Ukraine, and trading children for profit.
occrp.org/en/storykiller…

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More from @OCCRP

Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project Profile picture
Dec 27
Less than two months before Bashar al-Assad’s regime fell, Syrian intelligence was busy spying. Its work included targeting journalists and their families.

Exclusive documents shared with our partner @SIRAJ_SYRIA show how Assad’s secret service targeted journalists. Photo credit: IMAGESLIVE/Alamy Stock Photo
Discovered at General Intelligence Directorate (GID) headquarters after rebel groups took power on Dec. 8, the documents reveal the Assad regime’s paranoia about independent media.

Journalists exposing corruption were framed as spies. The General Intelligence Directorate in Damascus, Syria. Photo credit: Ali Ibrahim/SIRAJ
One story that rattled Assad’s GID?

An investigation by SIRAJ and OCCRP that traced the supply chain sending European trucks to Syria despite sanctions, uncovering how loopholes let Volvo, Scania, and Mercedes trucks enter the country.

occrp.org/en/investigati…
Read 5 tweets
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project Profile picture
Dec 23
NEW: In Honiara, Solomon Islands, clean water is a luxury. Where floods bring disease, children bathe in polluted rivers and bottled water costs half a day’s wages.

A $20M @ABD_HQ plant funded in 2019 was supposed to help, but not a single drop of concrete has yet been poured.👇Discarded plastic water bottles line the shore of the Mataniko river in Honiara. Photo Credit: Charlie Piringi/In-depth Solomons.
The Kongulai Water Plant was meant to deliver 15M liters of clean water daily.

But from day one, the project seemed damned: lowball bids, blacklisted contractors, and political interference.

Here’s what went wrong. Solomon Water’s plan to expand and upgrade its clean water services in Honiara. Credit: Edin Pašović, OCCRP/Solomon Water
Solomon Water, the state utility, expressed concerns to @ABD_HQ about accepting the lowest bid, from an Indian joint venture whose bid numbers didn’t seem to add up.

Sources told OCCRP that @ADB_HQ awarded the contract anyway.
Read 8 tweets
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project Profile picture
Dec 18
NEW: A grandson of Tajikistan’s president purchased a luxury Dubai property when he was just 9 years old, leaked real estate records show.

But where did the money come from?

Now 18-years-old, Erajjon Gulov’s three-bedroom apartment is valued at $1.3 million. 🧵 Palm Jumeirah archipelago in Dubai. Photo credit: Ole Martin Wold
Under UAE law, children between the ages of 7 and 18 can buy property with the approval of a legal guardian.

Back in 2015, Gulov’s mother and presidential daughter Parvina Rahmonova had no known source of income.

His father earned a presumably modest salary as a civil servant.
In his 30+ years as head of state, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon has promoted family members to key positions in government — including his son Ashraf Gulov.

After his posting at the Tajik embassy in Moscow, Gulov served as Tajikistan’s ambassador to Turkey from 2021-2024. Emomali Rahmon, the long-ruling president of Tajikistan. Photo credit: American Photo Archive/Alamy Stock Photo.
Read 7 tweets
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project Profile picture
Dec 6
Romania’s constitutional court annulled first-round presidential election results amid allegations of Russian meddling that helped far-right candidate Calin Georgescu emerge as a surprise frontrunner.

The court has ordered the election process to restart.
occrp.org/en/news/romani…
The decision follows findings from the country's intelligence service that Russia influenced the vote through a coordinated social media campaign.
occrp.org/en/news/romani…
Georgescu, known for praising Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "great patriot" and labeling Ukraine "an invented state," was rapidly rebranded as a pro-Western candidate through TikTok and Telegram posts.
Read 5 tweets
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project Profile picture
Dec 4
NEW: An international money-laundering ring run from Moscow & Dubai has been moving billions in crypto and cash for criminal operations, @NCA_UK says.

84 people have been arrested as part of “Operation Destabilise,” involving police from the U.K., Ireland, the U.S. & France. Photo credit: U.K. National Crime Agency
Several alleged key figures in the ring had “multiple links to the Russian financial sector,” the NCA said.

Some were sanctioned by the U.S. today, including Georgy Rossi, founder of the TGR group of companies, one of two “criminal enterprises” allegedly running the network. Georgy Rossi (right) and Elena Chirkinyan, his "second-in-command" (left). Photo provided by NCA.
The other, Smart, was led by Russian national Ekaterina Zhdanova, who the U.S. sanctioned in 2023. Ekaterina Zhdanova. Photo provided by NCA.
Read 7 tweets
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project Profile picture
Nov 20
NEW: Two Canadian banks continue doing business with alleged Toronto-based mafia boss Angelo Figliomeni despite high-profile 2019 organized crime and money laundering charges.

OCCRP and @TorontoStar learned that the banks hold four of Figliomeni's mortgages. Image
Figliomeni moved to Canada in the early 2000s after he was convicted on weapons charges as well as mafia membership in his native Italy.

In 2015, Canadian media reports described him as a suspected "Toronto-area mafia leader." Photo credit: York Regional Police. A mugshot of Angelo Figliomeni.
TD Bank and RBC maintained two mortgages apiece with Figliomeni despite these reports.

Even after Figliomeni’s 2019 arrest in what Toronto-area police called its biggest-ever mafia bust and the subsequent collapsed court case, both banks continued to maintain the loans. Image
Read 6 tweets

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