From Sputnik News

A new project has revealed that telecom companies, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), cable operators across Eastern Europe are clouded in a smoke and mirrors operation that covers a myriad of offshore companies and shady deals.

The project — a collaboration of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), RISE Project and Euractiv.ro — funded a year-long investigation into over 200 telecom companies in Eastern Europe and their ownership and funding.

It found that 72 of them lacked transparency over ownership — whether through alias companies or offshore outfits. Forty of them had direct links to politicians — leading to accusations of political influence in the use of personal data.

“The battle for the Internet is on in Central and Eastern Europe. This project is a first in exposing the owners of Internet infrastructure across the region. Our reporters worked hard for the past year to unearth very complicated and sometimes obscure ownership structures,” said OCCRP executive director Paul Radu.

According to OCCRP, Romania’s largest ISP, RCS-RDS, is controlled by Zoltan Teszari, an enigmatic Romanian businessman from Oradea whose ability to evade scrutiny earned him the nickname “the anonymous billionaire.” Moreover, some Romanian ISPs have ended up in court for accusations of fraud, bribery, provision of false documents, illegal appropriation of state lands and mismanagement of public funds.

Offshore Secrets

Ukraine’s largest telecom company, Ukrtelecom, is controlled by the country’s wealthiest businessman Rinat Akhmetov, once mentioned by police as the leader of an organized crime gang.

The latest report also states that “Serbia is a legal gray zone for data protection. State authorities can get usernames and passwords to access ISPs’ internal systems, allowing them to access retained data at any time. It is unknown how many people use these accounts or whether every access is based on a court order.

“In the Czech Republic, heavy on Internet traffic and with an extensive network of fiber-optic cables, the location and entry-points of international data cables still remains unmapped and ‘classified’ for allegedly strategic reasons,” the report states.

Investigators found that the largest Internet Service Providers are dominated by offshore companies, based in the Netherlands, Cyprus, Luxembourg, the US, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands.

“When we think of offshores, we mostly think of Cyprus, maybe about Panama or the Cayman Islands. But most European countries offer the same facilities,” said Radu.

IMAGE: Ukrainian businessman Rinat Akhmetov. © SPUTNIK/ SERGEY STAROSTENKO

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