Greatest cover-up in history?

Standard trolling by the admin, meant to distract. Challenge the move without letting it drown the news cycle!

I am hiring a post-doctoral fellow (2 years) to work on all things political finance in Africa. There are no teaching obligations, and lots of opportunities for fieldwork. A PhD in Political Science is a requirement. Please spread the word! Happy to answer questions - send them to my LSE email.

Further obvious evidence that allowing your cryptocurrency exchange to be used for money laundering is a really really bad idea decrypt.co/350490/coinb...

And just in time for the holidays! The perfect present for all your criminal and kleptocrat loved ones living abroad. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Epstein had kompromat on Trump and was prepared to take advantage of it

🤔unusual indeed

🤦‍♂️😈 "Thiel said that international financial bodies, which make it more difficult for people to shelter their wealth in tax havens, are one sign the antichrist may be amassing power & hastening Armageddon,saying: “It’s become quite difficult to hide one’s money.”" www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Come work with us!

Are you interested in research on corruption/illicit finance/kleptocracy? We are hiring a Research Fellow at @acdatacollective.bsky.social: acdatacollective.org/wp-content/u... Please share in your networks, this could be a great gig.

Academic friends, what is the best place to run representative surveys in the US that is reasonably affordable? Recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

I have given in and started a Substack to write about illicit finance, development and data In my first post, I explain why we should be careful about citing the $312 billion statistic on the size of Chinese money laundering datadarkly.substack.com/p/exactly-ho...

The choice facing Switzerland is clear. It can cling to an outdated model of banking secrecy that represses press freedom, or it can align its laws with democratic standards, write Delphine Halgand-Mishra and @frederikobermaier.com. bit.ly/4p85SHj

Happy ERC Announcement Day, everyone! And huge huge congrats to Jacob. So well deserved.

Great to have @szakonyi.bsky.social present his new book project in the keynote speech at the WhoGov 2025 workshop at @statsvitenskap.bsky.social ! The last two days have been full of exciting presentations on elite research by a great group of researchers!

speechless

Today, @catiebailard.bsky.social and I take the reins at GW's Institute for Data, Democracy + Politics! We'll work to make IDDP a one-stop shop for research on misinfo, platform manipulation, and threats to democratic ideals. To follow our work + learn about opportunities, visit: bit.ly/45GLggi

We are really excited to welcome so many excellent scholars to Oslo for our WhoGov workshop/mini conference on political elites on September 1-2. If you are in or around Oslo and want to join for a session or a day, please reach out. You can find the program here: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/wp9m6...

New @publiccitizen.bsky.social report: The Trump admin is deleting enforcement against Big Tech lawbreaking amidst the industry's BILLION-dollar influence efforts. Turns out in Trump's techno-swamp, tech insiders are immune & "tough on crime" rhetoric is just for punishing the poor.

Very happy to announce the publication of Workplace Politics, with @szakonyi.bsky.social and Ora John Reuter. Drawing on data from 8 countries with a deep-dive on Russia, we examine when, why, and how politicians and employers pressure their workers to vote in elections. academic.oup.com/book/60445

#DRC🇨🇩: A new @pplaaf.bsky.social investigation reveals construction subcontracts worth $70M were awarded to a company linked to Minister Guy Loando."Fighting against impunity is essential to defend the public services that have been denied to the 🇨🇩 population." said PPLAAF. 🔗 👉: pplaaf.pro/4kQQBr5

Great article from @szakonyi.bsky.social on what is being lost with the closure of Russian election monitor Golos: www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/07/11/w...

It was painful to write an obituary, from an academic's perspective, for one of Russia's most important civil society organizations @themoscowtimes.com www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/07/11/w...

Our new report is out today!

Financial institutions are the arteries of modern economies—but when captured, they become pipelines for illicit wealth. @acdatacollective.bsky.social's new brief "Inside the Congo Hold-Up" shows how BGFIBank DRC was hijacked by the Kabila regime to launder public funds. 🔗 bit.ly/ACDCPolicyBr...

🚨New working paper🚨 w/ @jeannebomare.bsky.social We use data leaked from the Isle of Man to understand how well international agreements meant to provide tax authorities with info on foreign accounts actually work We find that tax authorities probably receive a lot less than they would desire 🧵👇

Join @szakonyi.bsky.social presenting our new paper on the schemes and tricks deployed at BGFIBank DRC to embezzle and launder public funds, as revealed by the #CongoHoldUp investigations.

What’s even more puzzling is that the media will cease to exist if they choose not to hold this current regime accountable and cover it for what it is

If I'm reading this correctly, then Yarvin wants the role of führer to be awarded via a Wings of Voice-style competition www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Good work here from my friend and colleague Andrei Yakovlev www.foreignaffairs.com/russia/putin...

10/🧵 Read my full analysis in my latest:

In retrospect, insanity

Investigate and make this a story about today. Especially if and when the SEC refuses to.

The surviving types of studio movies: - Brutal horror-comedy shot in Australia - Ordinary Man Has Awesome Kill Skills - Authorized musician biopic - Christian film that looks like Skyrizi ad - Arch auteurist bit from 31yo A24 guy - Christopher Nolan (biennial) - 2010-style raunch comedy (biennial)

Incredible line-up at this year's Russia Program event at GWU, April 18 here in DC I'll be there debuting work from my new book on technocrats Details and RSVP here 👇 therussiaprogram.org/conference_2...

But wait, there is more Great reporting by Der Spiegel, Full story: www.spiegel.de/internationa...

🚨 Developed by Transparency International and the @acdatacollective.bsky.social, the new Opacity in Real Estate Ownership (OREO) Index exposes major vulnerabilities in how countries prevent dirty money from entering property markets. Check it out! ➡️ anticorru.pt/3aq

Over 2 million people in the US have access to classified information, and would be punished immediately for divulging “attack plans”. Same goes for all those in uniform Trump letting his team get off creates huge electoral vulnerabilities

Transparency works, but only with enforcement and public access! Check out our brand new OREO Index that launched today from @acdatacollective.bsky.social and @anticorruption.bsky.social : www.transparency.org/en/news/unve...

But we were told that appeasing dictators would deter them from further abusing their power?

🚨New paper alert! 🚨 What happens when the opposition takes power under authoritarian regimes? What can Putin-era Russia teach us about how to challenge dictators? tl/dr: create a credible alternative and fight corruption onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.... @ajpseditor.bsky.social 1/

instead of offering grants to local newspapers, why not just buy thousands (millions) of print subscriptions and send them directly to people's mailboxes?

We're proud to join this call for greater transparency & integrity at #COP30 + other critical climate conferences. Our report on COP29 showed how ambitious climate action is threatened by corruption & undue influence. Brazil & UNFCC must set a new standard. acdatacollective.org/work/cop-co-...

If you live in one of the 50 states, you have an important political power that I (a resident of DC) do not: you have a senator. And I'm asking you to take 5 minutes today to use that power to speak up for my family, my city, and our county by calling your senators and asking them to oppose the CR

It turns out implementing decent laws can deter dirty money in real estate (ahem US!) Check out our updated working paper on how the effects of transparency on offshore investment in Londongrad

Coinbase Chief Legal Officer: the critics who think we’ve bought out the government are refusing to engage with the nuanced and complicated fact that Trump used to be anti-crypto before we started spending hundreds of millions of dollars on politics

Let's call this what it is—the selling off of the collective assets of the United States to private investors—a massive transfer of wealth from the public sector to (some wealthy) private individuals. (and the GSA will likely lease a significant portion back, reinforcing the wealth transfer).

Looking forward to this today. The book has gone from Harvard to Columbia and now GWU. Last seen in New York. Thanks for hosting us @szakonyi.bsky.social

they are playing him like a fool www.bloomberg.com/news/article...