These government-funded “watchdogs” exist solely to reinforce government-sanctioned narratives.
Two prominent Western propaganda outfits, self-styled as international investigative news agencies whose stories are widely republished by major global media, share the same Amsterdam mailbox address—a letterbox company providing no physical office, only phone answering and mail forwarding. These are the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and Bellingcat. Both receive funding from the US, UK, and other Western European countries aligned with NATO. Their “news” coverage supports the political agendas of these Western backers, often by depicting Russia as a hostile civilization, with Western media amplifying these narratives.
What are the chances that two supposed independent media, financed by Western governments, would use the exact same European mailbox for their official addresses? (The location is a quaint narrow canal-side building. I contacted the operator of this service who confirmed no other companies maintain offices there.)
Drew Sullivan launched OCCRP in 2007. Its European arm is registered at Herengracht 449A in Amsterdam, the identical address listed by Bellingcat’s European office. Neither actually rents physical space there. The address corresponds to Amsterdam Office Space, which provides phone-answering and mail forwarding services, along with Chamber of Commerce registration.
Bellingcat’s Chamber of Commerce documentation shows the same address. It lists the enterprise as engaged in film production and social science research, without mentioning its assertion of being “a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group.”
Why This Apparent ‘Coincidence’ Raises Concern
The Netherlands is well-known as an offshore hub for money laundering. Interestingly, at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy, in April, Sullivan admitted OCCRP “launders money” for other journalistic groups, explaining, “OCCRP does that for its member organizations. We take the money and pass it on to other journalists. Launder money legally, move the money away so there is not a direct connection between you and the donor.” He proposed other groups adopt similar methods.
Therefore, the Amsterdam shell company might also serve money-laundering purposes, with its address used for bank accounts facilitating cash transfers.
OCCRP
OCCRP was born simultaneously with Julian Assange’s Wikileaks, which unveiled numerous US global abuses. Sullivan, formerly an aerospace engineer and stand-up comedian, founded the parent entity Journalism Development Network, registered in Delaware with a New York postbox.
Funding Mechanisms
Initial funding for OCCRP came via the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, routed through the Journalism Development Network.
Later, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) took over operations; NED had earlier replaced CIA-run soft-power programs. In November 2021, at an event called “Independent Media and the Advancement of Democracy,” USAID director Samantha Power labeled OCCRP a US government “partner.” The contract allowed federal agencies to influence senior staff appointments, including the CEO and editor-in-chief.
Filings by Journalism Development Network display that the majority of its funding originates from the US government, with significant amounts from the UK. (DOS refers to Department of State, FCO to UK Foreign Office.)
This document itemizes grants from NED, established to replace a discredited CIA “soft-power” initiative.
Funds are distributed to local media entities, primarily in Europe and Russia, enabling these groups to mask their US government funding.
Money flows from NED and is dispersed as cash grants worldwide. Sullivan explained at Perugia that OCCRP “launders money for other journalists” to obscure funding origins. (Here is a list of international media recipients and fund sources.)
OCCRP employs over 200 staff in around 60 countries, acting as a nexus for local reporters globally. Between 2014 and 2023, the US government provided over half (52%) of OCCRP’s budget, amounting to at least $47 million since its start. Other NATO members—including the UK, France, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands—have contributed notably during the past decade.
Since 2016, OCCRP partnered with Transparency International to operate the Global Anti-Corruption Consortium, funded by multiple Western governments. These investigations claim to incite judicial interventions and mobilize civil society against “corruption,” channeling resources to media outlets opposing US adversaries’ regimes.
Another funding source is a partnership with RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute, a UK defense and security think tank boasting former CIA director David Petraeus as vice-president.
OCCRP’s collaboration with RUSI’s Centre for Finance and Security is financed by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, suggesting a government operation masked as journalism, assisting in tackling sanctions evasion.
Further sources of US and UK government funding flow into OCCRP as outlined below.
Assange
As a loyal US collaborator, Sullivan openly opposed demands to free political prisoner Julian Assange. Sullivan remarked, “For me his work on behalf of the Putin government crossed the line and so I no longer consider him a journalist but a self-serving media celebrity who has been destructive. He played a different game and he is reaping what he sowed.” Thus, to Sullivan, exposés like the “Collateral Damage” footage revealing US helicopter attacks on civilians are dismissed because they “sowed” global criticism of the US.
Russia
Convicted tax fraudster William Browder has long been a central figure in the US’s campaign against Russia. During a 2015 US federal court deposition, Browder admitted he obtained documents from OCCRP to support claims against the Russian government. Bill Alpert of Barron’s, noted in the deposition, also collaborates with Browder, writing promotional pieces about him.
OCCRP bolstered Browder’s narrative around the Browder-Magnitsky hoax, crafted by ex-State Department official Jonathan Winer, architect of the Magnitsky law passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in 2012. This legislation imposes sanctions on those linked to Magnitsky’s arrest and death. (Magnitsky, ironically, was the accountant managing Browder’s tax evasion. Winer was involved with the Bureau of International Narcotics and played a key role in spreading the Steele dossier during the 2016 election.)
Browder’s fabricated story, supported by OCCRP, was a dramatized account designed to elicit sympathy for the “victim” while fostering animosity towards Russia. This is why OCCRP persistently publishes Browder’s falsehoods, ensuring they gain traction in US and international media.
OCCRP’s 2014 Russian Laundromat investigation accused Russian businesses of money laundering. It received significant Western media coverage, yet offered no evidence, with sensational claims failing to produce charges or convictions in the named countries. Switzerland notably abandoned the inquiry after a decade, illustrating the lack of proof (example).
In 2017, OCCRP reported that Sergei Magnitsky, described as an independent lawyer, uncovered in 2008 that police and tax officials had stolen ownership of three Hermitage-owned companies and sought a $230 million tax refund.
This was false. Magnitsky was actually an auditor at Moscow’s Firestone Duncan, involved in Browder’s tax evasion. OCCRP claimed Magnitsky detected officials seizing Hermitage subsidiaries to claim illicit tax refunds.
In reality, Hermitage itself established fake shell companies that claimed fraud and demanded repayments. The firm paid and altered tax filings to eliminate profits and taxes.
Browder insisted criminals had stolen his companies and that corrupt investigators forged subsidiaries using seized documents. Magnitsky supposedly exposed this and was arrested as a result. This fabricated account was widely repeated internationally despite lacking evidence.
No proof exists that Magnitsky was murdered, though he suffered inadequate medical care. A thorough inquiry by the Public Oversight Commission, a Russian NGO monitoring prisons, found no signs of Browder’s alleged beatings or murder. Its report was submitted in US federal court and used by Physicians for Human Rights in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Thus, OCCRP’s tale about Browder and Magnitsky was fabricated from beginning to end. Nevertheless, it served the US government, aided by compliant press, in creating a narrative of “evil” Russia and sanctioning Russian officials and corporations.
The Panama Papers
OCCRP played a key role in the Panama Papers leaks, again targeting Russia.
German journalist Bastian Obermayer obtained a vast document trove from Mossack Fonseca, a Panama firm setting up offshore accounts for tax evaders and criminals. He collaborated with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which enlisted OCCRP to manage data and recruit journalists. David Kaplan, who led this project for ICIJ, served on OCCRP’s board.
Browder’s Berkeley Advisors was among Mossack Fonseca’s shell companies used to move Russian funds abroad.
OCCRP should have identified this link. Yet none of the nearly 400 journalists reporting on major offshore figures mentioned Browder. When I asked ICIJ director Gerard Ryle why, he said writers chose coverage themselves. However, somehow, Browder and Berkeley Advisors were omitted from the Panama Papers database, making it impossible for reporters to cover them (details).
OCCRP also contributed significantly to the Pandora Papers, Suisse Secrets, and China Tobacco exposés, predominantly focusing on US adversaries.
Regime Change
Sullivan has asserted that OCCRP played a part in toppling governments in several countries, including Bosnia, Kyrgyzstan, the Czech Republic, and Montenegro, prompting concerns about the organization’s alignment with Washington’s agenda.
Bellingcat
A fellow US-UK-backed outfit, Bellingcat cited OCCRP as a partner in its 2021 annual report.
Bellingcat was founded in 2014 by Eliot Higgins from Leicester, England. By 2016, Higgins became a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think tank supported by the State Department, the arms industry, and NATO, advocating for their interests in Washington.
Funding Structure
Bellingcat operates within a network sponsored by US and UK governments, plus intermediary organizations, promoting anti-Russian messaging. It has been funded by the National Endowment for Democracy since at least 2017 and participates in UK foreign office-funded groups.
Bellingcat’s financial disclosures reveal funding from Western governments and intermediaries. For further details see, https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2022/05/Bellingcat-Annual-Report-2021.pdf and https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2024/06/Bellingcat-Annual-Accounts-2023.pdf.
Beyond NED, Bellingcat receives funds from the European Union and other Western governments and intermediaries, including the Dutch and Swedish Post-code Lotteries.
Bellingcat is linked to OCCRP via its subsidiary, the Integrity Initiative, which is financed by the UK Foreign Office. Bellingcat collaborates with it. The Initiative is structured into “clusters” of operatives dedicated to opposing Russia.
Operatives include Browder, Ben Nimmo from the Atlantic Council, journalists Ed Lucas and Anne Applebaum (who is married to Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski).
What the US and UK Gain by Funding Bellingcat
Bellingcat spreads narratives favored by US and UK intelligence agencies that those governments prefer not to originate themselves. This enables anti-adversary stories, especially anti-Russian ones, to be circulated without governments needing to present evidence. It effectively acts as a disinformation engine, a term once synonymous with propaganda.
Amy Mackinnon noted in Foreign Policy magazine that Bellingcat has been essential in unveiling Russian activities, allowing US officials to discuss matters without revealing intelligence sources or evidence.
Former CIA deputy chief for Europe and Eurasia Marc Polymeropoulos remarked, “I don’t want to be too dramatic, but we love this… instead of trying to have things cleared or worry about classification issues, you could just reference their work.”
Ex-CIA chief of station Daniel Hoffman added, “The Russians routinely deny, and say, well, present us the facts. The greatest value of Bellingcat is that we can then go to the Russians and then say, there you go.”
Mainstream media call Bellingcat an open-source investigative entity rather than an intelligence front, relying on its controversial anti-Russian reports without probing how it acquired information seemingly restricted to intelligence services.
Bellingcat maintains official partnerships with outlets like CNN and NBC; CNN’s Jake Tapper has praised it as “a great journalistic organization.”
When did news organizations such as CNN start partnering with entities funded by US or EU government intelligence agencies? Bellingcat claims access to “open source” data that is unavailable on public platforms or the internet, suggesting access only possible for state actors.
MH17
Bellingcat’s founding coincided suspiciously with the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crash over Ukraine. This tragedy became the group’s first major case, quickly producing “irrefutable evidence” blaming Russia. The sharpest assessments on this come from Dutch journalist Eric van de Beek (reporting).
Bellingcat furnished purported evidence of MH17’s downing, including photos tracing a Russian missile’s path.
But where did these come from?
A November 2020 email revealed Bellingcat shared its MH17 investigation with Amsterdam’s National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism (NCTV) before public release, suggesting cooperation in shaping media coverage. Could information sharing have been reciprocal?
Western governments and mainstream news uncritically accepted Bellingcat’s MH17 findings despite numerous eyewitnesses contradicting their version. Dutch intelligence noted that many Ukrainian Buk missile systems were observed in eastern Ukraine, but none of the Russian equivalent. Witnesses recounted fighter jet activity near the crash site. Bellingcat labeled journalists reporting such accounts as Russian agents.
According to Der Spiegel, Bellingcat’s author accusing the Russian Defense Ministry of tampering with MH17 satellite imagery was Timmi Allen, a pseudonym for a former East German Stasi officer.
No mainstream journalist questioned how Bellingcat acquired highly sensitive documents, including confidential Russian intelligence emails and phone records, supposedly showing Russian agents’ communications and locations. None of these qualify as “open source.”
During the Dutch trial, only defendant Oleg Pulatov obtained legal representation and testified. He was acquitted on all charges, with the court finding “no indication” of involvement in missile procurement.
Poor Input, Poor Output
In 2022, Christo Grozev, a prominent Bulgarian Bellingcat figure, succeeded Higgins as chairman and director of the Bellingcat Foundation. Grozev had produced the 2022 propaganda film “Navalny”, which won an Oscar. The film accused Russia of poisoning opposition activist Alexey Navalny with a fatal toxin placed in his underwear; Navalny survived. The German military hospital treating him kept results confidential, raising questions about the story’s credibility.
The documentary claimed Bellingcat acquired extensive telecom and travel data implicating Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) in Navalny’s poisoning. Such communications are highly classified and not publicly accessible. Bellingcat contended the data were purchased on the black market, with Grozev admitting he funded it personally. This strains credulity—could the FSB never detect such a market? The film’s claims are dissected here.
Grozev was dismissed in 2023 following his involvement in a failed attempt to recruit Russian pilots to defect and for justifying a bombing in St. Petersburg that killed a war reporter and injured 30, labeling the victim a “legitimate target” and “propagandist.” He applied similar rhetoric to Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin after a bomb killed Dugin’s daughter. These controversies displeased National Endowment for Democracy funders.
Ironically, PBS Frontline had recently broadcast a laudatory film about Grozev, stating, “Antidote follows Christo Grozev, whose reporting with the open-source investigative group Bellingcat has exposed Russian spies and assassins…”
However, Grozev had been terminated before the film’s release.
Even Allies Accuse Bellingcat of Deception
Bellingcat deflects disapproval by blaming Russia for negative perceptions, yet a leaked report suggests they’ve been compromised by their own allies for spreading misinformation.
The Zinc Network, aiming to organize NGOs against the “growing threat from Kremlin-backed disinformation,” produced a 2018 report for the UK Foreign Office, “Upskilling to Upscale: Unleashing the Capacity of Civil Society to Counter Disinformation.” It noted potential partners and stated that “Bellingcat was somewhat discredited, both by spreading disinformation itself, and by being willing to produce reports to anyone willing to pay.”
Let that soak in: “Bellingcat was somewhat discredited, both by spreading disinformation itself, and by being willing to produce reports to anyone willing to pay.” And this is supposedly a reputable “news” source?
Higgins resents such criticism.
Far from being an impartial “open-source” investigative group, Bellingcat is compensated by Western governments to echo official state narratives.
Both OCCRP and Bellingcat clearly function as propaganda outlets. Readers and reputable media should demand independent verification before accepting their assertions, or risk spreading falsehoods that damage their own credibility.
Original article: therealistreview
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