Ali Nagiyev, 59, is a busy man. His job is to fight corruption in Azerbaijan, one of the most corrupt countries in the world. As a deputy chief of the Anti-Corruption General Directorate with the Prosecutor General, Nagiyev is supposed to investigate state officials for conflicts of interest, nepotism, and other abuses. As such, he...
When we asked our friend, a member of the Armenian community in the Czech Republic, if he knew a man called Shant Aleksanyan, he answered: “He’s like a specter.” This reply startled us. It turns out that many in the community have heard of Aleksanyan and know that he has many businesses in the country, including a...
As Belgrade slept on the night of Nov. 28, 2015, the giant turbofan engines of a Belarusian Ruby Star Ilyushin II-76 cargo plane roared into life, its hull laden with arms destined for faraway conflicts. Rising from the tarmac of Nikola Tesla airport, the hulking aircraft pierced the Serbian mist to head towards Jeddah, Saudi...
Over the past 13 months, at least 68 cargo flights from Serbia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Czech Republic have carried thousands of tons of munitions to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Jordan, three key suppliers of the Syrian rebels. Of the 68 flights identified, 50 were officially confirmed to have carried arms and...
A collection of documents leaked from a secretive offshores services firm in Panama shines a light on how some Czech business operatives were clandestinely linked to others in some of the country’s more notorious financial scandals. Details about these transactions are buried in the Panama Papers, a trove of internal data of Mossack Fonseca, a...
Money laundering and tax evasion appear to be two reasons Czech citizens establish companies in offshore destinations. According to a World Bank study, about US$ 1 trillion flows through offshore jurisdictions every year. Of that stream, large chunks of the money is illegal and the people who benefit from it include politicians, fraudsters and drug...