PEPs

Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman and other oligarchs are exploiting European investment treaties to sue Ukraine for hundreds of millions, and in some cases billions, of dollars, according to a new investigation by Follow the Money.

Former Bolivian President Luis Arce was arrested on Wednesday as part of a sweeping corruption investigation, just a month after conservative President Rodrigo Paz took office and ended two decades of left-wing rule, according to the Associated Press.  

Mexican federal authorities have taken former Chihuahua governor César Duarte back into custody, preparing to charge him with laundering public funds allegedly diverted while he was in office, according to the Associated Press.

Israel’s largest defense company, Elbit Systems, has been suspended by NATO’s procurement arm and barred from bidding for work amid a widening corruption investigation into alleged bribery around military contracts.

A Singapore court has allowed a $2.7-billion lawsuit against Standard Chartered Bank to proceed over its alleged role in the looting of Malaysia’s 1MDB sovereign fund, according to Reuters.

Law enforcement raids on luxury Kyiv apartments, including one bathroom fitted with a golden toilet, and images of duffel bags stuffed with cash have plunged President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration into its biggest corruption crisis since he took office, the Financial Times reported. 

Albanian organized crime groups have tightened their grip at home and expanded across Europe while drawing minimal pushback from Brussels, according to a Follow the Money investigation conducted with media partner BLAST. 

Belgian authorities have officially charged former European commissioner Didier Reynders with money laundering, a person familiar with the case confirmed to Follow the Money. He is not being held in custody.

Eric and Donald Trump Jr. have turned a family-branded cryptocurrency venture into a cash machine that eclipses the Trump Organization’s traditional businesses, according to a Reuters investigation that traces opaque token purchases by overseas investors and a wave of U.S. policy shifts friendly to digital assets.

The Trump administration has lifted U.S. sanctions on Milorad Dodik, the powerful Serbian nationalist who led Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina until earlier this month, following an intensive lobbying effort by figures close to former President Donald Trump.