Not long after imposing sanctions on wood imports from Russia and Belarus, Europe saw an influx of wood supposedly coming from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Authorities say sanctions-busters are increasingly mislabeling wood as Central Asian so they can keep bringing it in to the EU.

Re:Baltica is part of an international group of 80 journalists from 27 media outlets who are gathering new information on the assets of sanctioned Russian billionaires, servants and propagandists in Europe, USA, and elsewhere after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In few weeks, we found over 145 properties – villas, flats, yachts, private planes – worth over 17 billions US dollars. The Usmanov, Tokarev and Mazepin families own property in Latvia, but some of them won’t be touched until the sanctions are extended to the family members of Putin’s inner circle. 

On Jan 31, 2022, the last trains carrying sanctioned Belarussian potash fertilizers were supposed to cross Lithuanian territory. 

The regional court in Riga has found the owner of the Baltic – Russian media powerhouse and his Estonian side-kick guilty of breaching EU sanctions against Russia and fined over three million euros in the biggest criminal case of this kind the Baltic country has seen so far.

Despite harsh EU sanctions, Belarussian oil exports to Estonia reached record levels in 2021. Here’s how the trade, initiated by the oligarch nicknamed the ”energy wallet of Lukashenko”, has been set up.

The events organised by anti-vaxxers and Covid-19 restriction deniers, begs the question – who is paying for all of this? Until now it has been hard to find sources of organised, external funding so Re:Baltica looked into the main disinformation spreaders and the way that they live. 

The pandemic has escalated online harassment, especially aimed at journalists and healthcare workers. Yet in all three Baltic countries police don’t consider even publicly shared death threats as real enough, therefore action against perpetrators rarely follows. 

Latvia is the first of the Baltic States that has convicted a person who spreads fake news – he has been found guilty of hooliganism and incitement to hatred on social media. Meanwhile, Estonia and Lithuania are relying on educating society rather than handing out criminal penalties. 

Work visits to the U.S. described as “fuckery”, promises to “fix things” in the banking sector, disclosure of confidential information in a sauna and false testimony: a dropped case lifts the veil on how the former governor of the Bank of Latvia operated.

Until relatively recently, journalists generally considered the anti-vaccination movement to consist primarily of misguided new mothers. During the Covid-19 pandemic, this view has changed dramatically. Misinformation on vaccines is now being spread on social media by healthy living evangelists and other profiteers, people seeking to grow their political capital, and fans of Kremlin propaganda. 

Profit of the payday loans made Aigars Kesenfelds millionaire and gave him a chance to spread wings internationally. The turnover of his businesses now approaches 400 million euros a year. However, the plain sailing has run into difficulties in Kosovo and Armenia due to “abnormal superprofits”, and the companies related to him have lost licences. For this story, the least known Latvian millionaire is forced to leave the shadows and answer unpleasant questions.   

The case for the alleged breach of EU sanctions against Russia by the owner of the Baltic media-powerhouse which distributes popular Russia’s TV channels may end up being heard in court behind closed doors.

At a time when many people have lost their incomes due to Covid – 19 pandemic, the supervisory board of the enterprise responsible for building Rail Baltica had quietly envisaged to raise their salaries by 15 percent or 400 euros as of January next year. They gave up the idea only after journalists from Re:Baltica started to question the decision.

When in March of this year Re:Baltica’s Re:Check became official Facebook (FB) fact checkers and labeled the first false information, the main conspiracy theory propagators in Latvia were enraged.

This story is written by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which organized the FinCEN Files global investigation into the world of banks and money laundering and of which Re:Baltica is part.

• How a handful of secretive agencies mass-produce UK shell companies quietly owned by criminals and launders from former Soviet states.

This story is written by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which organized the FinCEN Files global investigation into the world of banks and money laundering and of which Re:Baltica is part.

This story is written by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which organized the FinCEN Files global investigation into the world of banks and money laundering and of which Re:Baltica is part.

From Ukraine to the United States, from Tunisia to Turkmenistan, a global ICIJ investigation details the punishing human cost of laundered trillions.

The leaked suspicious activity reports written by the US based banks to the country’s financial crime investigators reveal that Latvia was considered a high-risk jurisdiction for years.

2005 –  FinCEN warns Latvia about the increased risk of Latvian banking sector being used for money laundering and expresses special concerns regarding two of 23 Latvian banks. U.S. financial institutions were prohibited from opening or maintaining correspondent accounts at one of them – VEF Bank.

The FinCEN Files provide a glimpse of the Latvian banks used by the ousted Ukraine’s president Yanukovych, his associates and adversaries.

Russian aluminium tycoon Deripaska (52) moved more than $3 billion of suspicious origin through a small Latvian bank. 

An alleged breach of EU sanctions, and a possible fine of up to 10 million euros, casts doubt on the future of Baltic Media Alliance, one of the largest media holdings in the Baltic countries focusing on local Russian-speaking audiences.

Re:Baltica’s fact-checking and social media research lab Re: Check today became Facebook’s official fact-checking partner.

In Latvia, every third woman convicted of murder has killed her partner, who had been abusing her. Why judges mostly don’t consider a history of violence as a mitigating circumstance?

Last March, Santa’s former partner cut off her ear. Afterwards, he calmly walked out of her apartment, taking the ear with him, and went to the police. On the way, he threw the ear away but didn’t tell the police where. As a result, the 12 hours during which it could have been reattached were lost.

Battling to stay in the competition for building Estonia’s 5G network, the tech giant Huawei has hired a lobby firm with three ex-ministers on board in an attempt to use their political influence and push back the decision to exclude the Chinese company due to security concerns.

When the Baltic prime ministers meet in Tallinn this Friday, they need to agree how to speed up building of Rail Baltica as deadlines are being missed and costs are rising. Latvia and Estonia are blaming Lithuania for stalling the project, while it digs its heels defending own interests

The land expropriation is an essential part of the high-speed train line Rail Baltica (RB), but Latvia and Estonia lag behind the schedule. It is another risk for timely finish of the project

The opposition to the Baltic high-speed railway line is the loudest and most political in Estonia, while in Latvia and Lithuania it is mostly desperate landowners.

The future of Europe, as per Raivis Zeltits, the secretary-general of the National Alliance (NA), a Latvian government coalition party, looks like this. First, the EU will dissolve into several regional blocs while retaining formal unity. Latvia will find itself in a bloc called Intermarium, which will stretch from Crimean beaches to the Gulf of Riga.

This article continues our series dedicated to Latvia’s security in the light of Russian aggression in Ukraine, the beginning I which I witnessed in Slaviansk, Donetsk and Kharkiv, while working for US media. In our previous piece, we explored a group of athletes turned politicians, which reminded of organisations that were involved in pro-Russian separatist uprising in southeastern Ukraine. That story also revealed a possible conflict of interest in how Riga mayor’s office led by Nils Ushakov funded public organisations.

China’s investments in the Baltic countries are so far insignificant, but the Chinese have their eyes on large strategic infrastructure projects, developments that are simultaneously tempting and worrying to the Baltics.

Squeezed between geopolitics and wary of Chinese espionage threats, the Baltic countries look to Brussels for guidance on what to do with Huawei and their 5G networks

The rise of Chinese influence in the world – and its consequences – has been one of the main topics in international relations in recent years. The US trade war, Europe’s attempt to create a common policy against China’s attempts to establish special relations with groups within the EU, China’s massive investment program for building infrastructure to create new trade routes – it all applies to us, too.

The objectives of China’s soft power in the Baltic states are to prevent the rise of uncomfortable foreign policy issues like autonomy for Tibet and to disseminate Beijing’s worldview through Confucius Institutes.

A major donor of Latvia’s biggest pro-Russian party Harmony has received payments from offshore companies used in the Magnitsky affair and the Azerbaijani laundromat, but says he cannot remember a thing about it.

After almost a year of haggling Latvia’s financial sector supervisors have finally agreed how they will probe cleanliness of funds at ABLV, the bank which is about to be wound up following allegations of institutionalized money laundering. This process has gathered dark clouds on the horizon for Pēters Putniņš, Latvia’s chief financial supervisor.

This was the most difficult investigation in the 8-year history of Re:Baltica.

The mayor of Latvian capital, Nils Ušakovs, and one of the party’s KPV.LV leaders, Aldis Gobzems, have failed in their efforts to bring criminal proceedings for defamation against the journalists of Re:Baltica.

Yuri Stilve, who has been convicted of spying for Russia, was ordered to take pictures of petroleum product warehouses and a communications tower on the border, and to find out what kind of underwear Latvian soldiers wear.

A 20-year-old information technology (IT) student was recruited by Russia to spy against Estonia, but kicked to the curb when he got caught. From behind bars, he tells his tale to Re:Baltica.

Skype logs and other documents obtained by Re:Baltica, Postimees and Buzzfeed offer a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the Kremlin’s propaganda machine.

It was supposed to be just another winter hunt for Sergejus Pusinas (35), a captain in the Lithuanian Air Force. Then a red light flashing in a fellow hunter’s pocket caught his eye. It triggered a series of events that finally led him to the point of no return.