The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has been honored in the very first Sergei Magnitsky Human Rights Awards for “outstanding investigative journalism”.

Sergei MagnitskyA United States bill which would allow authorities to bar corrupt foreign officials and those responsible for human rights abuses from entering the US and using its financial institutions has moved a step closer to possible adoption.

The bank theft was so outsized and bold that citizens of the Republic of Moldova came out in the streets this past May by the thousands to protest: “We want our billion back!”

They used the number -- US$ 1 billion – that news accounts reported had gone missing from three Moldovan banks in November of 2014.  Unsure who to blame, the protestors denounced the government, politicians, banks and organized crime.

French authorities have launched an investigation into money laundering and organized crime activities in France, Monaco and Luxembourg connected to the Magnitsky Affair, the largest tax fraud in Russian history.

A Russian businessman who collapsed and died in 2012 while jogging near his home may have been killed by a rare poison, a new toxicology test has indicated.