Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project

A Russian lawyer who sparked a wave of controversy for her role in a 2016 meeting with senior campaign officials for Donald Trump was charged Tuesday with obstruction of justice in an unrelated money laundering case.

Russia’s former minister of industry acquired stakes in golf courses worth many millions. The properties were once owned by people associated with a major pipe manufacturer that would have fallen under his purview as minister.

Viktor Khristenko, formerly Russia’s Minister of Industry and Trade. (Photo: Kremlin.ru)

One of the strangest operations Valery Amelchenko took part in during his work for Prigozhin’s team was a month-long trip to Syria — to test poison on unsuspecting prisoners.

(Photo: REUTERS/Marko Djurica)

Yevgeny Prigozhin ran the infamous St. Petersburg “troll farm” and other pro-Putin media operations. One of his operatives came clean to reporters, sharing some of the dirty work he and his team did for the oligarch — including murder. Then he vanished.

Yevgeny Prigozhin (Mikhail Metzel/TASS via Getty Images)

In a dynamic week for world-wide police agency Interpol, the organization has accepted two new members, rejected the application of Kosovo and named on Wednesday a new president after the previous one resigned following his arrest in China.

Tax authorities in Armenia have launched criminal proceedings against the country’s national gas distribution company, which is owned by Russia’s Gazprom, accusing the Armenian operator of evading millions of dollars in taxes, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported last week.

Once responsible just for his physical security, President Putin’s bodyguards now have impressive titles — and land worth many millions in Russia’s most expensive region. The workers and pensioners who previously held the property say they were swindled out of it.

Illustration: Natalya Yamshchikova

Three of President Putin’s top bodyguards appear to have been amply rewarded for their loyalty with some of Russia’s most valuable land.

Illustration: Natalya Yamshchikova

How Viktor Zolotov rose through the ranks, came to work for Putin, and met senior underworld figures in 1990s St. Petersburg.

St. Petersburg. (Photo: Pixabay)

Monaco detained on Tuesday a Russian businessman for his alleged role in a billion-dollar art fraud case that lead to the resignation and arrest of Monaco justice minister Philippe Narmino, Le Monde reported.

In 2006, the first deputy chairman of the Russian Central Bank, Andrei Kozlov, attempted to tell authorities in Estonia about a money-laundering scheme that had been created in the Baltic financial system. Three months later he was dead, age 44, and the scheme would later be revealed as the US$200 billion Danske Bankscandal, according to the Daily Beast.

Torture is widespread in police cells and prisons across Russia. A new analysis of court rulings shows what the perpetrators pay — if they pay at all.

Credit: Edin Pasovic / OCCRP

When investigating why Russian border guards refused to let a Tajik citizen leave the country, a journalist discovered that the FSB has been systematically using remote police stations across southern Russia as secret prisons. Victims are detained for weeks on petty charges, such as swearing in public.

Credit: Maria Tolstova

US authorities are investigating Danske Bank for money laundering connected to over US$200 billion that made its way through the bank’s Estonian branch into Europe, said Danske Bank on Thursday.

The U.S. Department of Justice indicted on Thursday seven Russian intelligence officers over alleged cyber attacks against the U.S. and its allies, saying they targeted the World Anti-Doping Agency, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and a nuclear power company in Pennsylvania.

Finnish authorities detained this weekend three money laundering and tax fraud suspects and raided the premises of a Finnish company owned by a foreigner.

Influential Russian citizens including politicians and executives of state-owned companies received residence permits in Hungary through the country’s controversial residency bond program, according to a joint investigation by two OCCRP partners, Hungary’s Direkt36 and Russia’s Novaya Gazeta; and Hungarian news site 444.

At first glance, it appears an unlikely story thought up in a movie studio. In Russia, Aslan “Big Brother” Gagiyev is called the “No. 1 killer.” He was the architect of the “Family,”  an elite murder squad that killed dozens and included high-ranking law enforcement officials among its ranks. Novaya Gazeta reporter Roman Anin sat down with Gagiyev to hear his story.

Photo by Svetlana Vidanova, Novaya Gazeta.

In the lead up to the 2018 elections, states are planning to spend US$ 380 million from the federal government to secure voting systems and tighten cybersecurity following revelations that Russian hackers targeted electoral systems in 2016, the US Election Assistance Commission said on Tuesday.

Leaked documents reveal that Arron Banks, a wealthy businessman and the main donor behind the Leave.EU campaign in England, was offered a deal to join a lucrative business venture with a Russian gold mining company, the Guardian reported after obtaining the documents from the Dossier Center.