Ján Kuciak, a young Slovak investigative journalist who was murdered three years ago, never got to the bottom of what could have been the biggest story of his life. Long attuned to financial fraud and corruption, he was closely following the doings of Marian Kočner, a brash businessman who frequently appeared on television and in...
An ex-soldier has been sent to prison for murdering Slovakian journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée, but a notorious businessman accused of masterminding the killings was cleared in a shock outcome to a case that has reshaped the country’s political landscape. Tomas Szabó was sentenced to 25 years in a maximum-security facility for the killings...
On the night of April 6, 2009, Mladen Miljanić and Braim Sinani were on the road, driving an Opel Astra across the plains of northern Italy from Milan to Venice. The two men were visiting from Slovakia, but they weren’t tourists — as police wiretaps of their conversations would later prove. In the car, Miljanić...
What do drug traffickers do with the mountains of cash they make supplying Europe’s cocaine habit? For members of Group America, the answer is easy: Spend it on Zlatibor, a mountain resort in southwestern Serbia. Though global in scope, the international cocaine smuggling operation has both roots and friends in Serbia. It’s only natural that...
It is relatively common for animals that rank high on the list of the world’s most protected species to change hands in Central Europe. Illegal wildlife trade has become one of the most profitable branches of organized crime. Where is the red line that divides the world of big cats’ enthusiasts and those involved in...
For over twenty years, the European Anti-Fraud Office (commonly known as OLAF, from the French: Office européen de lutte antifraude) has been protecting the EU’s financial interests, investigating fraud, corruption, and serious misconduct within the Union’s budget and institutions. The office has also developed an anti-fraud policy for the European Commission. But while OLAF looks...