Tag: News

South African authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the attempted illegal export of five baobab trees to Georgia, halting a massive shipment at the coastal port of Durban after discovering the exporter lacked required environmental permits.

The five trees, estimated to be between 200 and 300 years old and weighing up to 30 tons each, remain impounded at a Durban logistics warehouse while investigators build a case under the country’s forestry laws.

Under South Africa’s National Forests Act, the indigenous baobab is a protected species. It is illegal to cut down, harvest, transport, or export live specimens without explicit authorization from environmental regulators. While South Africa permits the commercial trade of processed baobab derivatives—such as fruit powder, seed oil, and cosmetic extracts—under strict licensing, the live specimen trade is tightly restricted to protect the slow-growing trees from international exploitation.

According to the Daily Maverick, the shipment was intercepted this summer at a facility operated by Africa Global Logistics, a subsidiary of the maritime shipping firm MSC Group. Officials discovered that the exporter lacked the mandatory permits required to export the specimens. Days after the seizure, the exporter submitted a retrospective permit application, which environmental authorities rejected.

“The department refused to issue a license retrospectively to regularize allegedly illegal criminal activities,” South Africa’s Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment said in a statement to OCCRP, confirming that a criminal case had been opened under the National Forests Act.

Department officials declined to publicly identify the exporter or the intended recipient in Georgia, citing the active investigation. However, a conviction carries severe penalties under South African law.

“A person who contravenes the prohibition in the National Forests Act commits a first category offense and may upon conviction be sentenced to a fine or imprisonment for a period of up to three years, or to both,” Sello Molekwa, chief director of communication and advocacy at the department, told OCCRP.

To botanists and conservationists, the uprooting of the trees—extracted from the Waterberg District in South Africa’s northern Limpopo province—represents a devastating loss of irreplaceable natural heritage.

Dr. Sarah Venter, a baobab expert and founder of the Baobab Foundation in South Africa, explained that removing the trees required approval under two distinct pieces of South African legislation.

“They didn’t have either,” Dr. Venter said, expressing hope that the impounded giants could still be saved. “I am hoping that the trees will be returned to Limpopo Province, where they came from, and replanted into their natural environment.”

Although South African authorities have not officially named the buyer, the seizure coincides with reports in Georgian media indicating that a private residence linked to the country’s billionaire former prime minister, Bidzina Ivanishvili, is preparing for a major tree delivery.

Ivanishvili has a documented history of importing ancient African trees for his personal estates and a public dendrological park on Georgia’s Black Sea coast. Between 2022 and 2023, eight massive baobabs were exported from Kenya to his park in Georgia. All eight trees withered and died last year, prompting the park’s management to issue an official statement blaming critical media coverage for extended procedures that then caused the demise of the trees.

The appetite for live specimens appears to continue. On Sept. 15, Georgia’s independent Formula TV reported that a new private residence being built for Ivanishvili outside Tbilisi was undergoing a “special landscaping project,” with a new baobab expected to arrive by late October.

The park is owned by a Georgia-registered firm ultimately controlled by Ivanishvili’s wife, while the residence is owned by its subsidiary. The director of the firm that owns the residence did not respond to requests for comment regarding whether the South African shipment was destined for the property. 

Meanwhile, the five uprooted trees remain held at the Durban facility. Africa Global Logistics stated that it acted solely as a logistics agent, halted the shipment as soon as regulatory concerns were raised, and is cooperating fully with authorities without facing criminal charges.

Source: OCCRP · 2026-10-29

A specialized anti-corruption court in Iraq sentenced lawmaker Muthanna al-Samarrai to six years in prison and ordered him to repay nearly $20 million for exploiting his position to profit from state oil contracts.

Al-Samarrai, who heads the Sunni political bloc Azm Alliance, used his parliamentary oversight role to benefit from public works and procurement deals involving the state-owned North and South Refineries companies. The lawmaker played a direct role in awarding contracts and steering payments to associates through four private companies, according to Iraq’s Federal Integrity Commission. The court ordered him to return 30 billion Iraqi dinars ($19.81 million) in illicit gains following his arrest in June 2026 alongside a former deputy oil minister.

Source: OCCRP · 2026-10-29

Attorneys for alleged South American drug trafficker Sebastián Marset have asked a federal judge to halt the search of a potentially pivotal cellular phone until the U.S. government explains how it took control of the device from Bolivia.

Marset, a Uruguayan national and self-proclaimed “King of the South,” was arrested in March in a pre-dawn raid in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Soon after his arrest, he was expelled to Peru and then whisked to the U.S. where he faces money laundering, drug trafficking and narco terrorism charges.

Law enforcement officers in Bolivia seized three phones from the house where they arrested Marset. However, it has emerged that they seized a fourth phone from an adjacent house.

Defense lawyers say in their motion — dated October 23 — that “it is impossible” for them to “be certain as to the timing of the search and whether it was done at the behest of the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] or was otherwise valid under Bolivian law.”

They argue that they weren’t notified about the fourth phone, which was a potential key piece of evidence for months, hampering their efforts and raising questions about the integrity of the operation.

The phone was sent to the DEA in mid-April, but didn’t appear in any court documentation shared with the defense team until late July.

“No contemporaneous report of the chain of custody appears to have been prepared,” Marset’s defense team wrote to U.S. District Judge Rossie Alston Jr., who presides in the Eastern District of Virginia.

The DEA confirmed to the defense team, the filing said, that it had extracted data from the phone without a court order. The agent “theorized that the search did not require a court order because the defendant had previously ‘consented’ to the search of his other devices.”

The lead prosecutor did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication. The DEA said it “does not comment on allegations.”

The prosecution has alleged that the four phones were used by Marset to access cryptocurrency accounts.

Crypto accounts have featured prominently in pre-trial disputes. Marset’s legal team alleges that DEA agents tried to trick his elderly mother into handing over passphrases for accounts that hold his digital currency, and later asked him to “donate” his $4 million in crypto assets. 

“A seizure does not require asking the detainee’s mother for a photo of a notebook containing access phrases, which are used to move funds, not to secure them. Such contradictions warrant an explanation, which has yet to be provided,” Santiago Moratorio, Marset’s Uruguayan attorney, told OCCRP.

In a September court proceeding, the lead DEA agent denied the allegation that they had asked for a donation.

The Marset case is being closely watched across South America because of his connections to Colombia, and allegations that he had protection in Paraguay and Bolivia where more than a dozen officials were recently detained under suspicion that they had ties to Marset. 

The State Department recently revoked visas for 12 Bolivian government, police, and political figures. It cited the need to defend against corruption and narco-trafficking, and said another unidentified nine Bolivians would be denied visas.

Marset’s lawyers argue that the initial charge of money laundering is invalid because it involved a single wire transfer between Portugal and China that did not involve the servers of a U.S. bank. The lawyers say Marset never trafficked drugs to the U.S. and the narco terror groups cited in court were not designated as such at the time of his dealing with them. 

In pre-trial conferences, Marset’s defense team has challenged several elements of the case, trying to get the judge to strike down portions of the indictments and weaken the prosecution. Alston has said he would rule on these motions by November 6.

Source: OCCRP · 2026-10-28

Just three days after securing more than 59 million votes in a fiercely contested presidential runoff, Flávio Bolsonaro fled Brazil on Tuesday and landed in the United States, halting investigations at home over his alleged ties to a banker accused of financial fraud.

A senior U.S. State Department official confirmed Tuesday that the U.S. “State Department will issue visas to Flavio Bolsonaro and his family and allow them entry into the United States.”

Argentina’s National Directorate of Migration (DNM) confirmed on the social network X that Flávio—son of the convicted former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro—crossed into Argentina through the Tancredo Neves International Bridge, which connects the Brazilian city of Foz do Iguaçu with Argentina’s city of Puerto Iguazú.

Accompanied by his wife and two daughters, Bolsonaro then boarded a private jet that made a short stop in Ecuador before landing in Miami, Florida.

The defeated candidate is under investigation by the Brazilian justice system for a scheme involving million-dollar payments received from Daniel Vorcaro, the former owner of Banco Master, now in pre-trial detention for suspected $ 7 billion financial fraud. Vorcaro invested heavily in the production of “Dark Horse,” a biographical film about the life of Jair Bolsonaro.

In May, the Intercept Brasil news outlet released audio recordings in which allegedly Flávio Bolsonaro is asking the banker, whom he referred to as “brother,” for 134 million reais ($26 million) to finance the feature film. Investigators allege that Vorcaro paid nearly half of that amount, and that the funds were diverted into U.S. accounts linked to the Bolsonaro family for personal use.

Flávio Bolsonaro, who has not been charged in this case, previously claimed that in this case “a son was seeking private sponsorship for a private film about his father’s story,” adding that it involved “no public money at all.” He also stated that when negotiations with Vorcaro began in 2024, “there were no public accusations or suspicions about the banker.”

Separately, a few days before the runoff election, Brazilian media reported that Bolsonaro is also being investigated for money laundering linked to Willer Tomaz, a close associate linked to the sports betting industry. Media reported that investigators suspect that Bolsonaro held a concealed interest in Tomaz’s activities through companies registered in Portugal. Both men deny the allegations.

An electoral victory would have shielded Flávio Bolsonaro from both probes, as Brazilian law protects sitting presidents from prosecution during their term for acts committed prior to taking office.

Source: OCCRP · 2026-10-28

A Chinese court sentenced a former senior anti-graft official at the China ​Securities Regulatory Commission, to a suspended death sentence for accepting more than 436 million yuan ($65.4 million) in bribes.

Between 1998 and 2025, Wang Huimin abused his positions in the northwestern Xinjiang region and at the national securities regulator to secure business and fundraising favors for companies and individuals in exchange for the illicit payments, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

A suspended death sentence gives the 67-year-old Wang Huimin a two-year reprieve from execution, after which the penalty is automatically commuted to life in prison under Chinese law.

Source: OCCRP · 2026-10-28