Open source investigations

Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo rewarded his electoral consultants, KRL International, with a $1 million contract. The agreement was signed by KRL International and Ghana’s Ministry of Finance, led by Nana Addo’s cousin and campaign finance manager, Ken Ofori-Atta on 28 June 2017. KRL claimed it was already providing lobbying services on behalf of the Ministry… Continue reading

Riva Levinson, the consultant who led Nana Akufo-Addo’s 2016 presidential campaign, is frequently hired by dictators, autocrats, guerrilla leaders and corrupt politicians to whitewash their crimes. Levinson did PR for Somali dictator Siad Barre even as he was massacring civilians. She was hired by Jonas Savimbi, leader of Unita, an Angolan separatist group funded by… Continue reading

Riva Levinson’s KRL International led Nana Akufo-Addo’s 2016 presidential campaign. Riva Levinson has a long and sordid history of smear campaigns against Ghana. In 2009-2010, KRL run a major mudslinging campaign against Mills Government, using fake news and propaganda, to undermine Ghana’s interest in the Jubilee deal. In 2003, Riva Levinson conducted a vicious negative… Continue reading

Thai Government used public funds to pay for BGR’s lobbying services on behalf of a third party, businessman and former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. For almost 2 years, from September 2012 to May 2014, Thaksin and Thai Government were represented by the same US lobby firm, BGR Government Affairs. The governing party was Thaksin’s former… Continue reading

Although we faced constant pressure from some Belgian media outlets, we continued to report about the so-called Kazakhgate affair, convinced that in the end the truth will prevail. This is what kept us going during our long journalistic investigation on this topic. In the process, we have been accused of being part of Putin’s propaganda… Continue reading

Despite early efforts, the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission can no longer ignore the obvious: According to its president, Dirk Van der Maelen, the Commission concluded that the settlement law was drafted by the diamond lobby for the benefit of the diamond dealers involved in fraud investigations. However this conclusion was not based on the testimonies of… Continue reading

„I made a commitment to the Zimbabwean minister of Mines to help lift the European Union sanctions on Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation and I worked extremely hard to keep these promises”. As strange as it may seem, it was not a government official or a politician who made that statement. It was Antwerp World Diamond… Continue reading

Aleksandar Vučić’s Wikipedia profile has been sanitized by a lobbying company. The Serbian government lied when it denied being the client of London-based lobbying firm Bell Pottinger. In 2014, the Government of Serbia and PM Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party were both clients of Bell Pottinger at the very same time.   “I work for Bell… Continue reading