OCCRP suspends all work in Russia in order to protect journalists it collaborates with from state pressure

• Original Quote

This does not mean we will stop covering the large-scale corruption in this country. We simply understand that the government, as it has always done, will sanction their citizens for collaborating with us.

OCCRP said in its statement that it has invited its Russian employees and collaborators to move abroad to be able to continue working with the group. Those who declined have been provided with severance pay and assistance with finding a new job.

Earlier this year, Russia’s Justice Ministry designated a number of Russian independent media outlets and journalists as “foreign agents” or “undesirable” organisations by Russian officials, including most of OCCRP’s partners.

Russian law requires organisations or individuals designated as foreign agents to register with the state or face sanctions. They are also required to regularly report on their activities and indicate their foreign agent status on any materials or content they distribute, including social media posts. For media outlets in particular, being dubbed a foreign agent has led to financial and operational difficulties, forcing some to shut down or move abroad.

Paul Radu, OCCRP’s co-founder and director of innovations, said Russian journalists were crucial to the organisation’s success.

On September 14, OCCRP published an investigative report about Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s alleged “female companion” and her unexplained foreign assets. The report was co-produced with iStories, another Russian investigative media outlet recently branded as a “foreign agent.”

OCCRP’s Paul Radu vowed to continue publishing investigations on Russia.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, founded in 2006, is a consortium of investigative centers, media, and journalists operating in over 50 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Central America – and, since 2021, the U.S. and Canada. The group is best known for its work on projects exposing transnational corruption, money laundering and offshore entities linked to prominent state officials, such as “Panama Papers,” “Paradise Papers” and “Troika Laundromat.” More recently, OCCRP released “Project Pegasus,” focused on the transnational surveillance and spyware industry.