Czech President Miloš Zeman likes to joke about shooting journalists. The veteran politician, who is running for reelection this week, recently earned international opprobrium when, sporting a faux assault rifle, he figuratively took aimat the press. As it turns out, if Zeman ever wants to make good on his threats, his chief financial backer may have...
Czech arms tycoon Jaroslav Strnad did not limit his Balkan shopping spree to stockpiled Chinese munitions. The businessman also bought at least two bankrupt, formerly state-owned factories in the former Yugoslavia, both of which are linked to the arms industry. He made the first of those purchases, the Suvenir ammunition factory in the Macedonian village...
Amonullo Hukumov, the former head of Tajik Railways, has told the media that neither he nor his wife own any real estate abroad. But records obtained by OCCRP show that his family has spent over $10.6 million on luxury real estate in two of the Czech Republic’s most popular tourist destinations. The hefty price tag...
Perhaps he was a fool, a liar and a fraud, the Baron von Munchausen of Russian influence in Europe. But the case of Alexander Usovsky – even though it may seem like a farce – is actually very serious. It’s the first so thoroughly documented example of Moscow’s foreign policy. It shows sources of its financing...
The Pentagon has relied on an army of contractors and sub-contractors – from blue-chip military giants to firms linked to organized crime – to supply up to US$ 2.2 billion worth of Soviet-style arms and ammunition to Syrian rebels fighting a sprawling war against the Islamic State (ISIS). Arms factories across the Balkans and Eastern...
Rashad Gafarov, a Azerbaijani businessman who owned businesses in the Czech Republic, sent LCM Alliance €54,900 ($71,043) from his personal account at a Czech bank, allegedly for construction materials. In June 2017, he was murdered. His car crashed into a truck on a one-way street in Holešovice, an arty Prague neighborhood. Doctors treating the injured...