Welcome back!
Let’s start today’s email with an excerpt from another email — a leaked message from a compliance officer at offshore law firm Appleby:
“I believe the client appears to be one of the bad [politically exposed persons] which definitely pose a very high risk and we may not want any business association with them,” the compliance officer wrote to their superiors, back in 2013.
“I don’t see a problem with the business,” a manager wrote back.
The business in question? Appleby was setting up shell companies — to own yachts, buy a Seychelles villa, and manage payroll for a 35-member crew, a chef and housekeepers — linked to a Russian lawmaker with reported ties to criminals.
That lawmaker — billionaire Andrei Skoch — and his 324-foot yacht, the “Madame Gu,” were designated by U.S. authorities this week, as part of the ongoing efforts to “turn Russia into a global financial pariah” over the war in Ukraine.
When ICIJ reporter Scilla Alecci saw the news, she went digging through our files for more details.
Sure enough, in the Paradise Papers, Scilla found documents revealing the network of middlemen Skoch used to acquire the yacht and other luxury assets worth hundreds of millions through a web of shell companies owned by his romantic partner.
This is the value of ICIJ’s massive data cache: it offers unparalleled insight into not just the shadowy finances of rich and powerful people, but also — crucially — the vast industry of professionals who play a pivotal role in helping hide untold amounts of wealth in offshore and onshore havens where secrecy is a currency in its own right.
FINANCIAL PARIAHS
The new U.S. sanctions also target cellist Sergey Roldugin, a behind-the-scenes player in Putin’s financial network, and steel baron Alexei Mordashov. Both figures have been the focus of ICIJ investigations.
ICIJ NETWORK COMMITTEE
ICIJ members from the Netherlands, Japan, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, France and Iceland will represent and advise on our network of 280 investigative journalists in more than 100 countries and territories.
NOBEL PEACE TALKS
In case you missed it, ICIJ director Gerard Ryle and Norwegian ICIJ member Per Anders Johansen shared behind-the-scenes details on ICIJ’s biggest scoops, and discussed how journalism collaborations like Pandora Papers and Panama Papers contribute to international justice and democratic change in a Nobel Peace Center panel. Watch video of the talk or listen to a recording on Spotify.
OSLO ANTI-CORRUPTION CONFERENCE
ICIJ’s Scilla Alecci will be discussing enablers uncovered in ICIJ’s biggest investigations this Friday, June 10, at a session of the 8th anti-corruption conference in Norway.
Thanks for reading!
Hamish Boland-Rudder
ICIJ's online editor
P.S. If you've enjoyed our coverage this week, remember to tell your friends and family and share our work on social media. Send them an email now!
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