The Golden Boys of Fatima
Tens of millions of zlotys, expensive properties, and a behind-the-scenes war for influence and money – we reveal the financial dealings of an empire built in Poland by a group of Catholic fundamentalists.
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Smuggling made real easy
If you want to make a fast buck, forget about smuggling alcohol, weapons or drugs. Choose pesticide trade. It guarantees high profits and zero risks.
Krzysztof Story
Hungary rules botched subsidies
Hungary tops the list of countries for most OLAF recommendations for the recovery of EU funds between 2014 and 2018. In these four years, OLAF concluded 52 probes into misuse of funds and recommended that the EU Commission to recover 3.84 percent of payments made to Hungary under the bloc’s structural and independent funds and […]
Slovakia: The Countess and the farmers
The European Union directs a massive amount of money towards Slovakia in the form of agricultural subsidies. These funds are managed and redistributed by the Agricultural Paying Agency (APA), an organisation with an annual budget of more than half a billion euros at its disposal. This kind of money attracts not only farmers and agricultural […]
Subsidised and defrauded. Visegrad EU funds under the eye of OLAF
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 […]
Lex Babiš. What is the Czech Prime Minister’s interest in EU subsidies
“She’s a little deranged. She doesn’t understand how subsidies work at all,” Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš said of MEP Monika Hohlmeier following the European Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee’s early March fact-finding mission to the Czech Republic. Led by Hohlmeier, the objective of the mission was to gain insights into the distribution of EU funds […]
EU funding fraud in Poland we know little about
Though the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) prepares comprehensive activity reports every year, it provides almost no information about recently disclosed crimes. Neither do the Polish authorities communicate openly and comprehensively about the nature and extent of EU subsidy frauds in the country. Story by Mariusz Jałoszewski, Konrad Szczygieł / Fundacja Reporterów Attempts at obtaining information […]
U.S. fears “malign influence over the region” of a Russian bank in Hungary
Hungary’s government agreed to limit the number of people who could receive diplomatic immunity in Hungary as staff or guests of the International Investment Bank (IIB). Only one or two dozen of them would receive immunity, Direkt36 has learned. The bank relocated its headquarters from Moscow to Budapest this summer. This story was first published […]
Inland, though Offshore. How Russia planned to secure its money
Many Western allies of Hungary are worried about Russia’s International Investment Bank (IIB) having moved its seat to Budapest. In the meantime the government of Hungary and IIB’s management are arguing that this is only a regular international bank and cannot even be categorized as ‘Russian.’ However, VSquare and its partners reveal how IIB’s head […]
Budapest. A welcoming gateway to Europe for a Russian bank
The management board of the Russian-led International Investment Bank (IIB) held its first meeting in its new headquarters, Budapest, this week. The move of IIB from Moscow to Budapest has been controversial since it was announced: experts, historians and the media have been worried that the bank would be a tool for the Kremlin to […]