The Belgian news magazine Le Vif has recently published a copy of Patokh Chodiev’s settlement with the prosecutors in Brussels. (See here for more details: http://www.levif.be/actualite/belgique/transaction-ce-que-les-kazakhs-ont-reellement-paye/article-normal-681331.html.) The document puts the entire Kazakhgate affair in a completely new light. After its publication, the inquiry commission and some parts of the media need some serious soul searching…. Continue reading
Open source investigations
„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
On 10 June 2011, Société Générale entered a transaction with the Public Prosecutors in Anvers, Belgium. The French giant agreed to pay 40 million euros; in exchange, the Public Prosecutors dropped all charges against the bank, who thus kept its record clean. OSI proved in a previous piece that this was the first such transaction… Continue reading
