On 19 August 2017, Bellingcat published an article regarding the new Persons of Significant Control (“PSC”) requirements introduced by the government, intended to deter the owners of Scottish Limited Partnerships (“SLPs”) from using the vehicle’s unique opaque structure as a means to conduct criminal activity. Subsequently, as reported by the Guardian and the OCCRP, SLPs…
Based on joint research between TI-UK and Bellingcat, “Offshore in the UK” provides new insights into how money launderers are abusing Scottish Limited Partnerships (SLPs) – the UK’s own home-grown secrecy vehicle – to move billions of pounds of corrupt wealth around the world. The report identifies how SLPs have become unusually popular in the…
Terrorists have been tinkering with bitcoin as early as 2012 — but today, jihadi crowdfunding campaigns have been on the rise. Some think that since most of these campaigns haven’t raised significant funds, there isn’t much to worry about. I will explain why this is wrong. Terrorists’ early attempts at using cryptocurrencies were filled with…
Bellingcat previously confirmed that a third GRU officer was present in the UK during the time Sergey and Yulia Skripal fell into a coma, after what the UK authorities said was a deliberate poisoning with Novichok. In addition, Bellingcat established that this same officer traveled multiple times to Bulgaria during 2015, including a trip days…
Scottish Limited Partnership registrations have plummeted in the latter half of 2017, but they continue to make headlines for all the wrong reasons.
The government recently announced new legislation to reveal the beneficial owners of Scottish Limited Partnerships. But this has done little to shed light on the people controlling them. In June 2017, Bellingcat and Transparency International published a joint-report into Scottish Limited Partnerships (“SLPs”) and their increasing rise in popularity, their use in large scale money…
On July 18, 2017, Scott S. Balber, the attorney representing the Agalarov family of Russian oligarchs amid an active United States investigation regarding the Russian influence campaign into the American elections, announced that he had privately named the 8th individual present at the June 2016 meeting between Trump campaign officials and Russian government proxies, which…
Much has been written on the use of child soldiers by the self declared “Islamic State”. With the offensive against Mosul beginning in earnest, eyes again are on the group and its use of children on the battlefield. With focus here perspective is often lost on the fact that other groups such as the Syrian…
When most people think about open source research, they think about uncovering social media materials of soldiers on the front-lines of the wars in Ukraine and Syria, or geolocating video footage of significant events with Google Earth. While open source materials have led a mini-revolution in how conflicts are reported online, there is another area where there…
The bank theft was so outsized and bold that citizens of the Republic of Moldova came out in the streets this past May by the thousands to protest: “We want our billion back!”
They used the number — US$ 1 billion – that news accounts reported had gone missing from three Moldovan banks in November of 2014. Unsure who to blame, the protestors denounced the government, politicians, banks and organized crime.
The theft was a serious setback for Moldova, one of Europe’s poorest countries, with a gross domestic product of only US$ 8 billion and an average wage of US$ 200 per month.
