Russian authorities accused @istories.bsky.social founder Roman Anin and his former colleague Ekaterina Fomina of disseminating false information on the Russian Armed Forces. “It will not affect my work in any way,” Anin told ICIJ.

From The Australian Financial Review: The washing of money through digital tokens is fueling global crime. AFR traced funds from the robbery to its final "integration" and explain why Australia needs stronger international rules. #CoinLaundry

In 2024, criminals stole thousands of dollars from Steve Beckett at a Circle K convenience store in Indiana. The robbery happened in broad daylight and the instrument of the crime was a machine, much like an ATM, owned by Bitcoin Depot. Read this story:

Drug syndicates have attacked Mexican civilians and police using .50-caliber ammunition produced at a U.S. Army-owned plant and smuggled across the border, millions of pages of documents and data obtained by ICIJ and @nytimes.com show. buff.ly/YuMPRBF

Diezani Alison-Madueke's trial resumed this week in the Southwark Crown Court in London, with prosecutors alleging that the former Nigerian oil minister once blew about $190,000 on a shopping spree for furniture and art that was paid by intermediaries.

From Nippon TV: Behind the rise in fraud cases in Japan lies a $7 billion "dark market." Fake IDs, bank accounts and websites used to commit fraud are being bought and sold, creating a breeding ground for crimes. www.ntv.co.jp/englishnews/...

After years of alarms raised by experts and civil society groups about transnational repression, the Canadian government has named its first foreign interference watchdog, ICIJ’s media partner CBC News reports. buff.ly/21P09CM

Senior research associate @emiledirks.bsky.social spoke with @icij.org about a new report he co-authored on #transnationalrepression in the EU. Read it here: www.icij.org/investigatio...

Journalists in the U.S., Germany, Portugal, Ukraine and Georgia uncovered new details about the business dealings of the alleged mastermind of a multimillion-dollar crypto scam as part of The #CoinLaundry. Learn more:

Reporting by ICIJ helped force a shift in Beijing’s public stance on Xinjiang, according to new academic research — from denying the existence of a vast detention camp system to justifying it and, eventually, to partially dismantling it.

From @eurasianet.bsky.social: When Guldariya Sherizat staged a protest in Kazakhstan over the arrest of her husband in neighboring China, she did not expect to end up in the dock facing 10 years in prison. Read the story:

Entities linked to the Chinese state have quietly assumed control of one of Malawi’s most strategic rare-earth mineral projects — without required oversight from Malawian authorities, an investigation by ICIJ partners PIJ Malawi, Finance Uncovered and The Continent found.

In the last few years, U.S. and European regulators have flagged crypto "nested services" as a potentially powerful tool for money launderers because they can hide behind the host exchange to process transactions and quickly cash out their bounty.

As traditional offshore havens tighten regulations and financial scrutiny, African elites and companies are increasingly turning to Asian financial hubs — notably Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong — a recent study by the University of Oxford shows.

From BBC News: A court in London has heard that former Nigerian oil minister Diezani Alison-Madueke, accused of accepting bribes from industry figures interested in government contracts, is alleged to have been provided with "a life of luxury in the U.K."

A year after the Assad regime collapsed, grieving families are still grappling with a lack of information about those who disappeared into the country's vast prison network. ICIJ's #DamascusDossier reporters spoke to families who are searching for answers:

Reporters for ICIJ's #CoinLaundry investigation spoke with more than a dozen cryptocurrency experts and law enforcement officials who expressed deep concern over the rise of a parallel financial system often operating in anonymity and ripe for abuse.

Under former Syrian president Bashar Assad's rule, authorities endeavored to extinguish all signs of dissent within the country, abducting people they deemed political opponents and, in many thousands of cases, killing them in prison. Read the story:

From @cbcradiocanada.bsky.social: Canada is set to name its first foreign interference commissioner a year-and-a-half after Parliament voted to create the position, and following #ChinaTargets’ recently documented cases of Chinese transnational repression in Canada.

Europe must take a coordinated response to fight the rising threat of transnational repression, according to a group of experts commissioned by the European Parliament to investigate ways to counter this form of cross-border authoritarian coercion.

The findings from The #CoinLaundry investigation raise questions about whether exchanges are doing enough to stop illicit financial flows, either by freezing funds, closing accounts or carefully monitoring suspicious transactions. Learn more:

Bitpanda prides itself on being one of the most regulated crypto exchanges in Europe. But new reporting by ICIJ media partners found that internal auditors of the firm's German-licensed subsidiary raised red flags last year about its Berlin operations.

Gravierende Mängel: Aufsicht zeigt Bitpanda die Krallen - mit @josefredl.bsky.social @profil.at, SZ, @recherche.ndr.de, @WDR (im Vorjahr bereits Medienpartner beim @icij.org Krypto-Projekt #TheCoinLaundry) - www.profil.at/investigativ...

From @irpimedia.eu: Chinese asylum seekers part of a Christian movement considered an illegal cult in China arrive in Italy hoping to escape persecution in their country, but the Beijing government continues to pressure them and their families back home.

ICIJ is now on Apple News! If you want to keep up with our work and support our organization, make sure to give us a follow: apple.news/TjqrobLHpTeq...

While cryptocurrency has become enmeshed in the traditional finance system, it has also been central to industrial-scale scam operations, fraud and other crimes. For The #CoinLaundry, ICIJ’s data team analyzed crypto transactions to expose dirty money.

The rise of blockchain technology — and the speed and anonymity of cryptocurrency transactions — has enabled Vladimir Okhotnikov to lure investors with far-fetched promises of trustworthy investment opportunities. Read more from The #CoinLaundry:

What an honor! The #DamascusDossier team has been nominated for the prestigious Grimme Award in the category “Special Journalistic Achievement.” Congratulations to the whole team! NDR/WDR/SZ @recherche.ndr.de @icij.org www.grimme-preis.de/presse/press...

From BBC News: Thousands of files provided by a whistleblower at Interpol expose for the first time the extent of Russia's apparent abuse of the international policing agency to target its critics abroad. Read the story:

ICIJ's #DamascusDossier examines how the Assad regime profited from U.N. contracts — and pressured the organization to keep the money flowing after its ties to Shorouk for Protection, Guarding and Security Services were exposed.

Kyrrex says it “strictly” follows “know-your-customer” rules and requires them to provide accurate and complete information to open an account. But records show that, as early as 2021, some customers opened accounts using false or incomplete information.

In recent months, at least two Europe-based Chinese students were detained after they returned to China for the holidays on charges of “secession” and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” respectively, allegedly for speaking up against the regime.

One man wants to collect cryptocurrency addresses to reveal their ownership. By performing in-person transactions at as many cash desks as possible, he gathers digital receipts that can offer this information to investigators. #CoinLaundry

The #DamascusDossier captures the institutional collapse at the height of Syria’s civil war: With the scale of death overwhelmed the Assad regime’s prisons and hospitals, some files are simply hastily scrawled notes listing the names of dead detainees.

For The #CoinLaundry investigation, ICIJ reporters and its partners relied on more than two dozen experts to either trace cryptocurrency transactions or to verify our analyses. To know more about how this investigation came together, read our FAQs:

ICIJ's #DamascusDossier documents included over 33,000 chilling high-resolution photographs of more than 10,200 Syrian prisoners. The skeletal remains are the grotesque results of former Syrian president Bashar Assad’s killing machine.

Israel killed three journalists, including a CBS News contributor, the latest attacks in Gaza despite a U.S.-backed ceasefire that began in October. Israel has killed about 220 journalists in Gaza since October 2023, according to Reporters Without Borders. https://wapo.st/4r5ZmRr

NEW: Billionaire fugitive Roger Ver was facing federal criminal charges — until he sought the services of a select club of President Donald Trump’s former personal attorneys who have easy access to top DOJ appointees.

NEW: Russia revokes citizenship of @icij.org member and IStories founder Roman Anin, accusing his outlet of fabricating reports on war crimes committed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine. “It will not affect my work in any way,” Anin says. www.icij.org/news/2026/01...

In interviews for The #CoinLaundry investigation, more than a dozen former compliance workers at major exchanges, including OKX and Binance, told ICIJ and its partner The Toronto Star that they could hardly keep pace with savvy criminals. Read this story:

The Russian government revoked the citizenship of ICIJ member and IStories founder Roman Anin in December, accusing his outlet of fabricating reports on war crimes committed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine. Yet Anin remains steadfast in his reporting.

Iqbal Athas, one of ICIJ's longtime members died last week in Sri Lanka after falling ill last year. He was 81. As one of Sri Lanka's most prominent journalists, Athas covered defence, politics and more, most recently for The Sunday Times.

Huione Group, a financial services conglomerate, lies at the nexus of identity theft, human trafficking, scam, fraud and money laundering. ICIJ's data team tracked transactions between Huione and centralized exchanges. Read these #CoinLaundry findings:

Oft braucht investigativer Journalismus Zeit, bis er wirkt. 2018 berichteten wir #ImplantFiles @icij.org über die Bandscheibe Cadisc-L: verheerende Affenversuche, trotzdem Implantationen bei Menschen.Nun steht in der Schweiz ein beteiligter Professor vor Gericht. www.tagesanzeiger.ch/cadisc-l-rue...

Blockchain analysis firms position themselves as both watchdogs and boosters of the crypto industry. Policymakers and law enforcement see them as authoritative sources of information, but the firms also maintain their own contracts with crypto ventures.

To make sense of the regulatory landscape for cryptocurrency across the world, ICIJ's #CoinLaundry investigation sorted global regulatory regimes into four groups based on their approaches. Find out what they are and where your country stands:

The alleged mastermind of a series of cryptocurrency scams, Vladimir Okhotnikov, has repeatedly rebooted an international Ponzi and pyramid scheme while diversifying an ever-expanding portfolio of startups. Read this #CoinLaundry story:

For over a decade, United Nations aid agencies poured millions into Shorouk for Protection, Guarding and Security Services despite warnings from human rights advocates about the company's multiple reported links to the Assad regime.

Tether can blacklist wallet addresses and freeze its tokens in place to stop bad actors from moving ill-gotten proceeds. Experts question whether the firm — which boasts a 99% profit margin — should take a more aggressive approach to tamping down crime.

From international hubs like New York City and the U.N. in Geneva, to small towns in the U.K. and Australia, Chinese and Hong Kong authorities continue to coerce, control or silence critics of the regime and independent voices who sought refuge overseas.