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US Court Orders Lebanese Ex-Minister to Pay $35M in Torture and Fraud Case

A U.S. district court has ruled against four Lebanese individuals, including a former minister, finding them liable for fraud, torture and civil conspiracy and ordering them to pay $35 million in damages, for orchestrating the kidnapping and torture of a Lebanese-American couple.

Speaking to OCCRP about the verdict from the Florida court, Lara Samaha, a U.S. green card holder, said the couple filed in the U.S. because “the justice system in Lebanon is so corrupt it is impossible to obtain justice.”

According to the default final judgment seen by OCCRP, a binding court order issued when defendants fail to respond to a lawsuit, the court ordered Gebran Bassil—a sitting member of parliament, Lebanon’s former foreign minister, and the son-in-law of former President Michel Aoun—to pay millions in damages, along with three co-defendants.

“⁠I feel justice has been served after 7 years in court and more than 300 court filings,” Lara Samaha told OCCRP. She confirmed that there will be a follow up on a related lawsuit in Lebanon, though she declined to detail the next steps.

The Florida court heard that the defendants kidnapped and tortured Lara and her husband Elie Samaha, a U.S.-Lebanese citizen, to force them to dismiss a lawsuit they had raised in Florida in 2017, against Lebanese government officials who had stymied Lara’s efforts to obtain her inheritance. The couple alleged to the court that Bassil had worked to ensure the dismissal in order to protect one of those officials. The court found that Bassil and the other defendants had lured the couple to Lebanon under the pretext of a settlement discussion of the inheritance dispute.

Bassil’s office denied any connection to the case or the parties involved. In a statement issued on October 16 after reports of the ruling, his office said Bassil has no relationship with the parties involved and objected to what it called a selective and fragmented presentation of the legal proceedings. The office claimed that the Florida court had previously dismissed a lawsuit in March 2023 for lack of jurisdiction, and that the Lebanese judiciary had issued a ruling in Bassil’s favor against Elie and Lara Samaha.

Commenting on the statement, Lara dismissed Bassil’s office claims, saying that what matters is the US court orders and final judgement.

The office did not say whether or not Bassil plans to challenge the Florida court judgement.

The couple’s legal battles began in 2015, when they filed a lawsuit in Beirut alleging that politically-connected family members had stolen millions of dollars Lara was due to inherit. With that case delayed but still active, they filed a parallel suit in the U.S. on November 17, 2017, seeking to recover the inheritance.

In 2019, the couple traveled to Lebanon hoping to settle the dispute. That, they say, is when their ordeal began.

Lara Samaha told Daraj, OCCRP’s partner, that she and her husband were detained —she for 11 days and he for nine. The legal complaint alleged that Lebanese security forces detained the couple upon their arrival in Beirut. She alleged that each spent part of that time in an underground military prison, where they were denied food, medicine and light. She also alleged they were forced to withdraw their lawsuits in both the U.S. and Lebanon.

Bassil, who heads the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), an influential Christian party in Lebanon allied with the Shiite movement Hezbollah, has been under U.S. sanctions since November 2020 for playing a major role in corruption in the country.

Bassil’s office did not respond to OCCRP’s request for comment.

Source: OCCRP · 2026-10-23

October 23, 2026
EU Sanctions Envoy Pushes for Action Against Rusal’s Irish Alumina Refinery

Material produced in a major metals refinery in Ireland is “undoubtedly” going into Russia’s weapons supply chain, the European Union’s Sanctions Envoy David O’Sullivan said on Thursday, adding that “there is a very real issue to be addressed.”

The comments, made at the Institute for International and European Affairs (IIEA) in Dublin, come seven months after OCCRP and partners published an investigation showing that the Aughinish Alumina refinery in western Ireland was indirectly supplying Russian weapons producers.

As much as half of the alumina from the Aughinish refinery was shipped to smelters owned by its parent company, United Company Rusal, and used to produce aluminum. The metal was then sold to a trading company supplying dozens of EU-sanctioned Russian weapons manufacturers, OCCRP’s investigation showed.

Weapons made by these firms have leveled entire city blocks in Mariupol, struck a children’s hospital in Kyiv, and blown open an apartment building in western Ukraine, according to EU sanctions listings, Ukraine’s military intelligence, and the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

Aughinish Alumina’s sales to Russia — which have increased since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine — are entirely legal under EU trade rules. That is because although EU exports of finished aluminum are banned, shipments of the intermediate material alumina are not, partly as a result of lobbying years ago by Ireland, where Aughinish Alumina is an important employer.

OCCRP’s investigation sparked controversy in Ireland and internationally, and led to growing pressure to sanction EU alumina exports. The Irish government launched its own investigation, which reached an ambivalent conclusion, saying that a lack of data made it “difficult to ascertain where Russia is sourcing its tools and weapons from.” It shared its findings with the EU Commission in July.

O’Sullivan was less cautious in his assessment.

“The alumina goes to smelters in Russia, who produce stuff which undoubtedly goes at least in part to the military-industrial complex,” he said. “I’ve read the government report. I personally, I think there’s no doubt the investigative journalists got it right.”

O’Sullivan did not say whether the EU would eventually ban alumina exports to Russia.

“I think there is a very real issue to be addressed. We just have to find the best way of doing it, which doesn’t have unhelpful collateral consequences,” he said, noting that Aughinish Alumina also supplied smelters in Europe.

In July, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a visit to Dublin that “Every ton of raw material that ends in Russia is used against us. I do hope whatever we are doing now, we are cutting every possibility, every sphere for Russia to build up, to militarize itself.”

Aughinish Alumina has said that its material is not used to make weapons, and that almost all the alumina it sends to Russian smelters is solely used to produce aluminum for onward export out of Russia.

OCCRP’s original investigation was published in partnership with iStories, the Irish Times, KibOrg, De Tijd, The Guardian, and Delfi.

Source: OCCRP · 2026-10-22

October 22, 2026
Facebook’s misleading privacy claims land Meta a $25 billion penalty
Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal may feel like very old news. But the consequences are still arriving, and the latest comes with a $25 billion price tag.

Reuters reports that a New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in civil penalties after a jury found that Facebook misled consumers about its data practices and its handling of hate speech and misinformation. Meta says it expects to win on appeal.

This case is about more than information ending up in the wrong hands. It concerns what Facebook told people about who could access their information, how much control users had, and how the company enforced its own rules.

What Facebook told its users

In September, jurors found that the company and its leadership made 26 misleading statements on data privacy, hate speech, and other subjects. For example, Mark Zuckerberg’s 2010 statement that:

“We do not share your personal information with people or services you don’t want.”

That assurance appeared in a statement the jury found misleading. The judge found that choosing who could see a Facebook post did not necessarily control what outside app developers could access. That access was governed by separate settings that many users did not know existed.

New Mexico’s attorney general filed the lawsuit in 2021, following revelations that Cambridge Analytica obtained personal information from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app.

But New Mexico’s case went beyond Cambridge Analytica.

The state challenged Facebook’s representations to consumers about its data practices and its efforts to address misinformation and hate speech. The case centered on misleading consumers under New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act, the state’s consumer protection law.

The state argued that third parties had broad access to users’ information and that Facebook tolerated harmful content when doing so benefited its business. Meta disputed the allegations, denied selling users’ information, and said the state had taken statements out of context.

New Mexico’s Department of Justice says the jury found 43,899,725 violations of state law. That does not mean nearly 44 million individual New Mexicans had their data taken. The count reflected the estimated audience for each misleading statement, rather than the number of individual people affected.

State law allows penalties of up to $5,000 per violation. Judge Francis Mathew found that a penalty exceeding $219 billion was warranted under the law but reduced the amount to $25 billion.

The judge said earlier penalties had failed to stop Meta from misleading consumers, including a $5 billion FTC penalty in 2019.

The money is not earmarked for compensation payments to individual Facebook users. According to Attorney General Raúl Torrez, state law directs the penalties to New Mexico’s school system.

Meta’s chief legal officer, C.J. Mahoney, said the company is confident it will prevail on appeal and characterized the lawsuit as an attempt to impose “a tax on speech.” Meta has also argued that a multibillion-dollar penalty risks violating constitutional protections concerning due process and excessive fines.

How to stay safe on social media

The case illustrates why privacy is not just a matter of choosing who can see a post. In a separate 2019 case, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleged that Facebook had shared users’ information with third-party apps used by their friends, even when those users had chosen restrictive privacy settings.

A few precautions can help you limit what you share, although settings alone cannot guarantee privacy:
- Share selectively. Leave optional profile details blank, limit who can see your posts, and avoid publishing sensitive details such as your address or live location. Ask permission before posting information or photos involving other people.
- Check app permissions. Does a social media app really need your contacts, precise location, or entire photo library? Turn off unnecessary access in your device settings.
- Review tracking and advertising settings. Look for controls covering personalized ads, activity outside the platform, and data sharing. Restrict what you can, but don’t assume opting out of personalized ads stops all collection.
- Be selective about connected apps. Before connecting a quiz, game, or other service to your account, check what information it requests. Decline access that seems excessive for what the service does.
- Remember what “private” means. Restricting your audience helps control who sees your posts. It does not stop the platform itself from collecting or using information about your activity.
Scammers don’t need to hack you. They just need you to click once.

Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection catches suspicious activity before it becomes a problem.

Source: Malwarebytes Labs · 2026-10-22
October 22, 2026
Smugglers Collected Up to $509M on Europe Routes in 2025
Smugglers netted an estimated $388 million to $509 million from sea crossings to Europe in 2025, according to new research by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The agency estimated that between 190,000 and 209,000 people were smuggled along four major Mediterranean and Atlantic routes, with criminal networks facilitating between 57 percent and 90 percent of departures. Fees varied widely depending on the journey, ranging from $170 for crossing to Spain’s Canary Islands to more than $7,500 for routes toward Italy and Malta, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The Central Mediterranean was the busiest route, with up to 100,400 people smuggled, followed by the Eastern Mediterranean with up to 51,300, the Northwest African Atlantic route with 33,000, and the Western Mediterranean with 24,500. These estimates, according to UNODC, reflect all smuggling attempts, including journeys that ended in interception or tragedy. The routes remained deadly: 3,404 people died or went missing in 2025, while another 104,200 were intercepted at sea and returned.

Source: OCCRP · 2026-10-22
Documents
- UNODC_SoM_ResearchBrief.pdf
October 22, 2026
The US is letting a convicted Bolsonaro spy chief stay in Florida. Brazil wants answers.

It was an unusual request. On Nov. 21, 2025, the owner of an apartment in a luxury complex north of Miami drafted a message asking the building’s management to remove his houseguest immediately, the same man his family had vouched for in writing two months earlier.

The guest was Alexandre Ramagem, a Brazilian congressman and spy chief under former President Jair Bolsonaro. In September, Ramagem had fled Brazil days before being sentenced to 16 years in prison for his role in Bolsonaro’s plot to overturn the 2022 election. The message was drafted the same day the country’s Supreme Court ordered Ramagem’s arrest and two days after a Brazilian news site published photos of him and his wife strolling through the Miami complex in workout clothes, causing outrage back home.

The message was written in the name of Rodrigo Martins de Mello, who was convicted of running an illegal mining operation on protected indigenous land in the Amazon. De Mello claimed he had only just learned from the press that his guest was barred from leaving Brazil. “In order to avoid any issues for the condominium or for myself, I hereby request that the condominium IMMEDIATELY notify him of my directive for him to leave my property,” De Mello wrote.

But Brazilian investigators say De Mello and his family knew all along that Ramagem was on the run. Messages, notes and photos from confidential records reviewed by ICIJ and Agência Pública show that they housed Ramagem for months, vouched for him to building management and sought paperwork needed to obtain a Florida driver’s license for him, including a lease drafted to make it look as if he was renting a room.

The records, obtained by Agência Pública and shared with ICIJ, are part of a sealed investigation by Brazil’s Federal Police into Ramagem’s escape, conducted within the Supreme Court’s sprawling investigation into the plot to overturn the 2022 election.

The Federal Police had an officer in Miami working alongside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. With the officer’s help, the confidential records say, ICE found Ramagem, who Brazil wants to extradite, and arrested him in Orlando in April for overstaying his visa.

Then the case took an unexpected turn. After two days, ICE released Ramagem while he pursues asylum. Days after that, the State Department told the Brazilian officer who had helped locate Ramagem to leave the country, accusing him of trying to extend “political witch hunts” to U.S. soil.

There’s a lot of favoritism and discrimination and double standards in the immigration system now. — Tessa Petit, Florida Immigrant Coalition

Six months later, Ramagem remains free in Florida. Officials in Brazil declined to say whether the U.S. has responded to its extradition request.

Ramagem’s treatment stands in sharp contrast with that of thousands of asylum seekers who have been deported since Trump returned to office.

“There’s a lot of favoritism and discrimination and double standards in the immigration system now,” said Tessa Petit, executive director of the advocacy group Florida Immigrant Coalition.

Most immigrants don’t get the break Ramagem got, said Petit, who fled Haiti in 2001 and was initially denied asylum before winning her case in immigration court. “The reality for the majority of people is: Be vigilant, be careful, and hopefully be lucky enough to not get picked up.”

Neither Ramagem nor the De Mellos responded to requests for comment for this story.

In Brazil and in the U.S., supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, a close ally of President Donald Trump, praised the White House for Ramagem’s release.

On Oct. 25, Brazilians will vote in a presidential runoff in which the narrow front-runner, Flavio Bolsonaro, a son of the former leader, has promised pardons for everyone convicted in the coup plot.

Brazilian presidential candidates Flavio Bolsonaro, left, and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attend a presidential debate ahead of the national election in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on October 18, 2026.

‘An illegal alien from Brazil’

Ramagem’s only known run-in with U.S. authorities came after months of living in plain sight in Florida and publicly accusing the Brazilian government of persecution.

Ramagem entered the country legally on Sept. 11, 2025, with permission to stay six months, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, told ICIJ. But he “chose to illegally overstay his welcome in violation of our nation’s laws,” the agency said, calling him, “an illegal alien from Brazil.”

Brazil filed a formal extradition request with the State Department on Dec. 30, 2025, according to Brazil’s Justice Ministry.

On April 13, police detained Ramagem in Orlando during a traffic stop and handed him over to ICE. Two days later, ICE let him go, pending the outcome of his removal proceedings, the agency said. He paid no bail, according to Paulo Figueiredo, a U.S.-based Brazilian commentator and Bolsonaro ally who said his immigration consulting firm has assisted Ramagem. Detained immigrants usually must go before a judge to seek release, but ICIJ found no record of Ramagem petitioning the court for his freedom. ICE told Brazilian police at the time that the release was an administrative decision and that Ramagem could remain free while his asylum claim was reviewed, according to Brazilian media reports citing police sources.

Ramagem’s allies credited Washington for his release. “Thank you, President Trump and everyone in the administration,” Figueiredo wrote on X. Eduardo Bolsonaro, another son of the former president, thanked Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Sóstenes Cavalcante, a leader of Bolsonaro’s party in Brazil’s Congress, said Rubio had helped speed up the release, which he said would otherwise have taken at least two weeks.

RAMAGEM IS FREE AND BACK HOME!

My deepest thanks go to Donald Trump @realDonaldTrump and @SecRubio for their sensitivity and attention in addressing the case of this true national hero, who, even under persecution, has never wavered.

Alexandre Ramagem deserves asylum in the land of freedom, alongside his courageous wife – tireless in fighting for his liberty – and their beautiful daughters.

— Eduardo Bolsonaro (@BolsonaroSP) April 15, 2026

Ramagem himself suggested he had U.S. government support. In November, after the publication of photos showing him in Miami, Brazil’s Supreme Court had ordered his arrest. The next day, in a livestreamed interview, Ramagem said he was safe in the United States “with the consent and knowledge of the American government.”

On April 20, five days after Ramagem’s release from immigration custody, the State Department asked Marcelo Ivo de Carvalho, the Brazilian Federal Police liaison officer posted in Miami to work with ICE, to leave the country. “No foreigner gets to game our immigration system to both circumvent formal extradition requests and extend political witch hunts into U.S. territory,” the department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs wrote on X.

The government in Brasília retaliated and suspended the duties of a U.S. immigration agent posted there, who then left the country on April 22. In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said the U.S. had failed to consult Brazil first, as the two countries’ agreement on police liaisons requires, and ignored “good diplomatic practice of dialogue between friendly nations, such as Brazil and the United States, over more than 200 years of relations.”

Neither the State Department nor the White House responded to multiple requests for comment. In its statement, DHS did not explain why Ramagem was released, saying only that he was freed “pending the outcome of his removal proceedings” and “will receive due process.” It added that a pending application “does NOT confer any type of legal status in the United States” and that “illegal aliens are not welcome in our country.”

The handling of Ramagem’s case stands out among those of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers in the United States.

Since Trump returned to office, immigration judges have ordered more than 440,000 asylum seekers removed, more than in the previous eight years combined, according to a recent Washington Post analysis. Release from ICE detention has also become the exception. By late 2025, ICE was deporting more than 14 people directly from detention for every one it released to await a hearing, according to the American Immigration Council, an advocacy group that analyzed ICE data. In December, the administration paused decisions on all asylum applications pending with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Ramagem’s release was not just an immigration matter. A career federal police officer, he headed Bolsonaro’s security when Bolsonaro was president-elect. He was then appointed head of Brazil’s intelligence agency, becoming part of the inner circle of a president whose prosecution the Trump administration has criticized. In July 2025, Trump imposed 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods, calling Bolsonaro’s trial a “witch hunt,” and his administration sanctioned Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court justice who oversees the coup case against Bolsonaro and Ramagem. A White House executive order that month accused Brazilian officials of politically persecuting the former president.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist who defeated Bolsonaro in the 2022 election, has accused Washington of meddling in Brazil’s affairs. Last month, Lula used his speech at the United Nations General Assembly to warn against foreign interference in the upcoming election there.

Court, the Federal Police arrested Rodrigo’s son Celso, on suspicion of helping Ramagem flee. In a statement, the family said Celso is innocent. Moraes also ordered Rodrigo’s arrest, and Rodrigo remains a fugitive. (This week, another Supreme Court justice rejected Rodrigo’s request to overturn the order, the Brazilian news site Amado Mundo reported.)

Ramagem has denied that Celso helped him. In an Instagram post after the ICE arrest, he said he didn’t know “a certain” Priscila or Celso. “They arrested a young man, a kid, who only met me when I was already in the U.S.,” he said. “In fact, this young man is American.”

Celso now wears an ankle monitor while the investigation, which is under seal, continues.

The confidential records show the De Mello family’s alleged involvement began early. Since June 2025, Ramagem, then a member of Brazil’s Congress, had been barred by court order from leaving Brazil and was required to surrender all his passports while on trial. He was charged with using the country’s intelligence agency to help Bolsonaro discredit its voting system. (Ramagem’s defense told the Supreme Court that the evidence against him was “extremely timid.”)

On Sept. 9, while on medical leave from Congress, he crossed from the northern town of Bonfim into Lethem, Guyana. A photo found on the phone of Priscila Freitas de Mello, then Rodrigo’s wife, shows him there the next day, smiling, at what appears to be an immigration post in Guyana. Brazilian Federal Police investigators say Rodrigo took the picture, according to the records.

On Sept. 11, as Brazil’s Supreme Court convicted him, Ramagem flew to the United States on a diplomatic passport that he had kept.

On Sept. 15, Celso messaged Priscila asking for a utility bill in his father’s name so Ramagem could apply for a Florida driver’s license, the confidential records show.

“Hi Pri, good evening,” Celso wrote to his stepmother. “Can you send me a bill for your apartment in my dad’s name? Water, electricity, phone, internet… We’re going to try to get Alexandre’s driver’s license tomorrow at the DMV.” He had drafted a lease, Celso wrote, to make it look as if Ramagem “had rented the room.”

“Let me see,” Priscila replied.

Two days later, Priscila wrote to the condominium’s management asking for a new gate access card. “Since we are traveling, we won’t be able to pick it up,” she said. “Therefore, we authorize a friend of ours, Alexandre Rodrigues Ramagem, to collect the new card on our behalf.” Celso also contested parking fines Ramagem had run up at the complex, the records show.

On Nov. 17, Ramagem’s spouse and daughters joined him in the apartment, according to the wife’s social media posts.

Investigators in Brazil allege in the confidential records that the De Mello family played a key role in keeping Ramagem hidden, both by housing him and by helping him deceive U.S. authorities with false documents. It is unclear whether a driver’s license was ultimately issued.

Rodrigo, the De Mello patriarch, has denied helping Ramagem escape. In November, he called the escape story a “fallacious narrative” meant to persecute the right, and said that when Ramagem was with him, he faced no conviction or legal impediment to leaving Brazil. The two men appeared together publicly in March 2025, when Rodrigo posted a photo of Ramagem’s visit to Boa Vista, De Mello’s longtime base in the state of Roraima, near the Guyana border, calling him “a great ally” of Bolsonaro.

https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2023/01/how-investigating-political-fanatics-became-one-of-the-most-dangerous-jobs-in-brazil/

MEET THE INVESTIGATORS How investigating political fanatics became one of the most dangerous jobs in Brazil Jan 08, 2023

https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/white-house-pick-to-run-venezuela-oil-deal-under-investigation-in-two-countries/

FINCEN FILES White House pick to run Venezuela oil deal under investigation in two countries Sep 03, 2026

https://www.icij.org/news/2026/04/arizona-gun-shop-owner-is-first-to-face-terrorism-related-charges-after-allegedly-selling-high-caliber-weapons-bound-for-mexican-cartels/

Accountability Arizona gun shop owner faces terrorism-related charges for allegedly selling high-caliber weapons bound for Mexican cartels Apr 30, 2026

Recommended reading MEET THE INVESTIGATORS How investigating political fanatics became one of the most dangerous jobs in Brazil Jan 08, 2023 FINCEN FILES White House pick to run Venezuela oil deal under investigation in two countries Sep 03, 2026 Accountability Arizona gun shop owner faces terrorism-related charges for allegedly selling high-caliber weapons bound for Mexican cartels Apr 30, 2026

Source: ICIJ · 2026-10-22

October 22, 2026
Interpol Cybercrime Crackdown Nets 1,400 Arrests and $105M

Interpol announced Thursday that authorities from 21 countries across Africa have arrested 1,462 suspects linked to cross-border cybercrime networks in what it described as “one of Africa’s largest cybercrime enforcement operations.” The agency said the operation disrupted 10,909 malicious networks and led to the recovery of more than $105 million in illicit funds.

Law enforcement identified 65,929 victims targeted by these cybercriminal networks, with investigations linking the criminal activity to losses exceeding $385 million. In Uganda alone, authorities dismantled two transnational fraud rings, arresting 365 foreign nationals linked to online investment and pension fraud schemes targeting victims across Asia.

Source: OCCRP · 2026-10-22

October 22, 2026
Collapsed Surrogacy Agency Loses U.S. Civil Case After Court No-Show

Collapsed international surrogacy agency World Center of Baby has been dealt a double blow in Florida, with a judge ruling against its U.S. corporate entity in a civil lawsuit – shortly after another case against the company was filed.

The developments come just over a month after OCCRP published a global investigation into the chaos World Center of Baby left in its wake after announcing it was filing for bankruptcy, including surrogates left unpaid and unsupported, and prospective parents abandoned.

In a decision made publicly available on Tuesday, Judge Thomas Ramsberger in Florida’s Sixth Circuit Court ruled in favor of a U.K.-based couple who brought a case against the agency’s U.S. corporate entity World Center Group Corp and two of its representatives. The complaint was on five counts, including breach of contract and fraud.

The lawsuit accused the company of “a calculated and coordinated scheme” to secure substantial payments for promised services despite its worsening financial and operational problems.

The judge noted that the decision was a default judgement as none of the three defendants — World Center Group Corp, its former listed president Yuri Star, and listed director Malvina Jonas — responded to summons sent to the addresses listed on the company’s corporate documents. The ruling followed an October 5 hearing that the defendants failed to attend.

World Center Group Corp, Star, and Jonas were ordered to recover funds for the couple amounting to $87,415 which they had paid for a World Center of Baby program that was meant to provide surrogate matching, medical coordination, and program management through the birth of two children. In the end, they received none of it.

The couple, who spoke with reporters, but asked not to be named, said: “Although we have a judgement, we are not yet clear on what our chances of recovery are.”

The case was tried in Pinellas County on Florida’s west coast, because that is where the most recent incorporation documents list an address for World Center Group Corp.

Just before the judgement, a second civil lawsuit was filed in Pinellas County against Yuri Star and World Center Group Corp. by another intended parent who alleges they paid the agency more than $40,000 for medical procedures that were due to take place in Mexico, but did not happen and were not refunded. The plaintiff had been urged to pay the money up front in exchange for a discount, the complaint alleges.

That lawsuit lays out four counts against World Center Group Corp, including fraud and breach of contract, citing OCCRP’s investigation as part of the submitted evidence.

The complaint also alleges that the plaintiff was unaware that the agency did not actually employ medical staff in Mexico and instead used third-party clinics. Former World Center of Baby employees later told the plaintiff that the agency had stopped paying its partner clinics and employees around the time that the plaintiff traveled to Mexico for a clinic visit.

OCCRP’s investigation into World Center of Baby found that the agency’s operations and ownership were difficult to pin down, including basic information such as who owns it, its corporate structure, and what led to its demise.

Star, the former listed president, told reporters during the investigation that he had been hired as a consultant to register the company and knew nothing about it or why it collapsed. He said he was not a shareholder, investor, or beneficiary, and was still owed money for his services.

Star did not respond to a request for comment on the judgement against him.

Reporters were unable to reach Jonas, the listed director. Five employees who spoke with reporters said they had never met or spoken with her and one of the employees claimed her signature was automated.

Ukrainian businessman Vladyslav Natochii, who is variously listed on previous versions of the agency’s website as its founder, owner, and managing director, but is not on the paperwork of the Florida-registered entity told reporters that World Center of Baby had “experienced a severe financial and operational crisis,” and denied wrongdoing.

Source: OCCRP · 2026-10-22

October 22, 2026
New US law requires dating apps to include warnings on romance scams

A new U.S. law signed by President Donald Trump Tuesday will require online dating services to notify users when someone they’ve been talking to is banned from the platform for fraud.

The bipartisan Romance Scam Prevention Act, backed by senators Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee (R-Ten) and John Hickenlooper of Colorado (D-Colo), was passed unanimously by the Senate in late September and went to the president for signature earlier this month.

Romance fraud schemes accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic when more seniors turned to dating sites for companionship, followed by scammers. Romance scams incurred record-high losses in 2025, with Federal Trade Commission data showing over 70,000 reports and a staggering $1.47 billion lost in the U.S. Losses also reportedly surged in the U.K., South Korea, Australia and across Africa.

Some dating sites already remove fraudsters’ accounts but a victim may continue talking to a scammer off the app long after a scammer’s profile has been deleted. The Romance Scam Prevention Act aims to close that gap by requiring dating platforms to send a fraud ban notification to anyone who has communicated with someone with a fraudulent account.

https://www.icij.org/news/2026/07/dating-app-scam-models-influencers-social-discovery-group/

Accountability Inside the Matrix: How models, influencers and engagement quotas power the Social Discovery Group’s dating machine and global profits Jul 23, 2026

https://www.icij.org/news/2026/09/tinder-swindlers-plan-for-a-dating-app-sparks-industry-backlash/

Collaborative Journalism ‘Tinder Swindler’s’ plan for a dating app sparks industry backlash Sep 18, 2026

https://www.icij.org/investigations/coin-laundry/crypto-giant-circle-rebuffed-efforts-to-help-scam-victims-police-say/

CRYPTOCURRENCY Crypto giant Circle rebuffed efforts to help scam victims, police say Jul 08, 2026

Recommended reading Accountability Inside the Matrix: How models, influencers and engagement quotas power the Social Discovery Group’s dating machine and global profits Jul 23, 2026 Collaborative Journalism ‘Tinder Swindler’s’ plan for a dating app sparks industry backlash Sep 18, 2026 CRYPTOCURRENCY Crypto giant Circle rebuffed efforts to help scam victims, police say Jul 08, 2026

Source: ICIJ · 2026-10-21

October 21, 2026
Kremlin payment firm A7 has been pumping billions in ‘untraceable’ cash into global financial system

At the sprawling Sadovod market in southeast Moscow, among the 160 acres of clothing, jewelry and appliance booths, at least eight teams are spotted, working apart from the everyday hustle and bustle of the market.

Throughout a business day, these teams, known in confidential records as “departments,” receive a steady stream of customers, almost always carrying bags of various shapes and sizes.

And inside the bags are piles and piles of cash — Russian rubles. These departments, staffed by payment brokers, are a key intake point for one of the largest, and most secretive, cash-processing operations in the world.

The inside of the sprawling, 160-acre market. Image: Natalia Senatorova / Wikimedia

Welcome to the industrial cash machine that is A7, the payments giant backed by the Russian state.

Between November 2024 and July 2025, A7 processed at least 283 tons of cash rubles, worth more than $14 billion, an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and Russian independent media outlet Proekt has found.

For A7, ICIJ discovered, cash is king, the jet fuel for a firm now under scrutiny as a “shadow banking network” designed to evade Western sanctions at scale, according to U.S. authorities.

On Oct. 1, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned A7 as a “significant transnational criminal organization,” which “utilizes money laundering methodologies to fraudulently move vast sums of money in violation of sanctions and other laws in the jurisdictions in which it operates.”

But while Western governments and banks scramble to trace A7 money flows through the international financial system, ICIJ’s investigation reveals that the origins of the bulk of A7 transmissions are, in fact, untraceable.

According to internal A7 records seen by ICIJ, and people familiar with the matter, a huge portion of A7’s payments do not stem from conventional bank transfers by clients inside Russia, but literally from hundreds of tons of cash rubles.

Leaked internal records allowed ICIJ to identify that a handful of wholesale markets and other businesses around the Russian capital, including Sadovod, where much of the business is done in cash, made up a significant share of the cash A7 processed.

The records show that while the source of the cash is untraceable, its destination is not: Most of the cash is bound not for Western markets, but for China.

A fountain in Sadovod market in southeast Moscow. Image: Nikita Andreev / Wikimedia

A7 did not return ICIJ’s requests for comment.

In public statements, A7 has strongly rejected the U.S. allegations of wrongdoing, saying that it “employs a modern, multi-tiered compliance system” and that it was “established to ensure uninterrupted settlements for the Russian market, which has been subjected to unlawful restrictive measures.”

“All clients undergo screening to identify risks and prevent the servicing of individuals or organizations whose activities violate regulatory requirements,” it continued.

Experts say the fact that cash drives A7 raises the spectre of a money laundering operation limited only by the size of the market and A7’s capacity to physically handle the cash. As such, A7’s cash-based model presents challenges not previously understood both to the conventional banking system and to law enforcement.

“Cash is considered one of the highest risk methods of payment and store of value because it’s anonymous, it can travel across borders, and it doesn’t attach to any specific individual or company,” George Voloshin, an expert at ACAMS, a global training body for anti-financial crime, told ICIJ in an interview.

“The A7 network not only helps Russia circumvent Western sanctions and export controls,” Voloshin continued. The fact that A7 takes massive volumes of cash from Moscow’s wholesale markets suggests that the company “is also likely to facilitate cash-based money laundering by effectively legitimizing potential proceeds of crime,” he said.

Voloshin added that international banks bear an additional burden of tracing payments emanating from A7. “The main risk is that [foreign] intermediary or beneficiary banks become complicit in [a] form of criminal activity that they know nothing about, because they don’t have any visibility into what’s happening in Russia where the money originates from.”

Cash by the ton, bound for China

On its launch in late 2024, A7 touted itself as a sanctions-proof payments system, and has come under increasing scrutiny for its role as one of the Kremlin’s principal channels for laundering billions of dollars worth of payments out of Russia and into the global financial system, via a global network of shell companies, often with accounts at major international banks.

As part of its launch, A7 integrated into its business a hodgepodge of informal payment brokers at Moscow markets, including Sadovod, according to internal A7 records seen by ICIJ.

“For [A7], Sadovod is simply a big client base — a big, aggregated pile of clients,” a person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity due to security concerns, told ICIJ. “And that’s exactly what they go there for: the money and the profit.”

For years, this ecosystem of market brokers converted importers’ cash into conventional bank transfers or crypto, most often bound for China. This informal system was upended by Western sanctions, which barred Russian businesses from the SWIFT system, the international messaging network that allows banks to exchange transactions. The threat of U.S. secondary sanctions — which target entities for doing business with sanctioned states or businesses — made Chinese banks more cautious when dealing with Russia.

The informal cash payment system at Moscow’s wholesale markets “depends on trusted intermediaries, established relationships and confidence that money will arrive,” Ilia Shumanov, managing partner of Russia-focused due diligence firm Tri-Trace Investigations, told ICIJ. “Its international reach can be extensive, while outsiders have limited visibility into the underlying transactions.”

Under A7’s new, supercharged system, a platoon of market brokers takes in the bags of cash brought by vendors and makes an initial count.

The brokers then stuff the rubles into numbered bags to be loaded, along with clients’ payment orders, into vans bound for an A7 processing office elsewhere in the Russian capital, according to leaked internal payment and cash management records.

A review of cash deposit and internal payment records shows that a small army of 50 or so A7 cashiers feeds the cash into a counting system where the amounts are verified; A7 enters the bag number, ruble amount and the client’s payment order into a bespoke payment management system, then trucks the cash on to Promsvyazbank, or PSB, the Russian state defense bank, a co-owner of the company. PSB puts it in a vault and credits A7 accounts. PSB acknowledged ICIJ’s request for comment, but did not provide a response.

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Source: ICIJ · 2026-10-21

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