Paul May

ICA-trained anti-money laundering investigator. Cybercrime / financial crime. Investigations for @investigace @VSquare_Project, security for @opensanctions

[VSquare @VSquare_Project]

🔎📽️NEW INVESTIGATION: Prague has long been Europe’s porn capital, with hundreds of films shot yearly and more porn stars per capita than anywhere else. For 20 years, one man and his companies have dominated the industry — but new laws may soon end that. https://t.co/zFAECp2YtT

[Szabolcs Panyi @panyiszabolcs]

Russia's disinformation campaigns are growing across Europe, using social media to support far-right parties like Germany's AfD, but their actual impact remains unclear. Read this great expert interview by @investigace_cz's @mrpaulmay on @VSquare_Project.https://t.co/K7CxpQ4Ued

[Szabolcs Panyi @panyiszabolcs]

I guess he meant Germany’s dark past.

Note: Viktor Orbán has repeatedly declared a zero-tolerance policy toward antisemitism. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[Paul May @mrpaulmay]

Interesting that they want Sullivan gone…

[Szabolcs Panyi @panyiszabolcs]

Here’s a photo of dawn on November 6 from above the clouds in the Baltics. Hello Vilnius! 👋

Security-minded people I’ve spoken with in the region were not panicking at the prospect of a Trump presidency; in fact, some are looking forward to seeing Jake Sullivan gone for good.

[VSquare @VSquare_Project]

🗳️ The consequences of the 2024 US presidential election will be felt from Washington, DC to Warsaw, Illinois. But they will also be felt in Warsaw, Poland.
Read more in @emilyctamkin's analysis 👉 https://t.co/udofuD391v

[Szabolcs Panyi @panyiszabolcs]

"A country once known for its patriotism, rock-solid First Amendment, and world-class legacy media has voluntarily allowed its national public to fragment into echo chambers run by shady oligarchs, tycoons & foreign business interests." Some thoughts after my US trip for @cjr👇

I have been in America, observing the final weeks of the election, and speaking with as many Americans as I can. I came, in part, to discuss challenges in Hungary—the ways authoritarian tendencies threaten to stifle press freedom and free speech. At a panel discussion, I and journalists from Brazil, Denmark, and India shared firsthand accounts. And then, when the Q&A began, someone from the audience instantly launched into a monologue about Israel, Hamas, and the war in Gaza. He didn’t even pretend he wanted to engage with anything we said. It wasn’t offensive or intimidating to us; it was simply a one-man show that intentionally and completely ignored our discussion.

During my stay I’ve noticed the same attitude, regardless of the topic. The American public, as a unified whole, no longer seems to exist. Instead, increasingly fragmented audiences are diving even deeper into their own rabbit holes. At the end of the tunnel, their perception of reality is so different from that of other groups that they become trapped in their own worlds. It seems more significant than the last time I was here for an extended period, in 2017.

I just smiled as one Uber driver launched into a long, animated monologue about Kamala Harris secretly being transgender. Then there were claims about the deep state plotting to sideline Bernie Sanders, or that COVID is a biological weapon deployed by the American government. A few days later, a fellow Hungarian journalist also touring the US messaged me about her similar conversations—involving witches and extraterrestrials.

The United States has long been a model for independent journalism and freedom of speech worldwide, particularly for Central European countries that regained independence and democratic freedoms after the collapse of Soviet influence in 1989. In Hungary, the introduction of press freedom and the elimination of censorship for the first time in history marked a monumental shift. With no government control over them, Hungary’s media slowly began to embrace principles of transparency and accountability—hallmarks of twentieth-century American journalism.

Then, more than a decade ago, we slowly began to revert to a Soviet-style system, with the government working to limit our reach to wider audiences and hindering journalists’ ability to inform the public. Viktor Orbán’s regime, the staunchest ally of Russia and China within the EU, uses proxies to buy up media outlets, accuses us journalists of being foreign agents working either for Soros or the CIA—and sometimes even installs military-grade spyware on our phones.

Meanwhile, despite Donald Trump’s embrace of Orbán and the desire of many of his supporters to achieve Orbán’s firm grip on the media, it always seemed that press freedom in the US was doing relatively fine.
But it seems that a country once known for its patriotism, rock-solid First Amendment, and world-class legacy media has voluntarily allowed its national public to fragment into echo chambers run by shady oligarchs, tycoons, and foreign business interests—sometimes openly, sometimes covertly influenced by Russia or China.

As a Hungarian investigative journalist, I no longer have a unified national audience to address back home due to the government’s media capture. I hope that once this government grip and the media firewall dividing the Hungarian audience are somehow dismantled, things will improve. But, examining America before it votes, I don’t have the faintest idea what should be done.

[Szabolcs Panyi @panyiszabolcs]

💥“The Russians are already clearly at war with us, even if we don’t recognize it... And each time we fail to respond when a Russian missile or drone crosses Polish or Romanian airspace, it emboldens them" – @general_ben, quoted in our new investigation.
https://t.co/dfXuivXQao

[VSquare @VSquare_Project]

🇷🇺 While Russian GRU special forces in Kaliningrad train for sabotage attacks, a new nuclear threat is building up in Belarus.
👉 Read the international investigation #EyesonRussia by VSquare, @FRONTSTORY_PL, @DelfiEE and @LRTenglish ▶️ https://t.co/7bGTnp36iD

[Szabolcs Panyi @panyiszabolcs]

"Our search for the service providers of Cytrox, part of the Intellexa spyware company group, leads us to a small town in the east of the Czech Republic."

Story by @investigace_cz's @ZuzanaSotova & @mrpaulmay on the Predator spyware for @VSquare_Project. https://t.co/ujpR97zdyq

[Paul May @mrpaulmay]

Very much enjoyed exploring Intellexa's infrastructure and enablers in 🇨🇿with @JulianVoeg of @RecordedFuture. English version with @VSquare_Project to be released very shortly.

#Intellexa #spyware

[investigace_cz @investigace_cz]

Spywarová firma Intellexa platila programátorovi z Krnova 👉 https://t.co/ZoMEY102YP

[VSquare @VSquare_Project]

📱❗ An investigative team of journalists from 13 European countries spent six months closely following the spread of disinformation, propaganda and alt-right opinion on the Telegram messaging application. More in our investigation 👉 https://t.co/ksYCXrwjV7

[Dan Neidle @DanNeidle]

Tide says it's easy to become an affiliate, and earn £50 for every business you refer.

Looks like it's too easy.

[Szabolcs Panyi @panyiszabolcs]

💥New story: Russian spy Pablo González's Polish journalist partner is charged with accessory to espionage. With her help, Pablo (aka Pavel) built connections in Warsaw within a community of journalists, foreign correspondents & activists. @VSquare_Project https://t.co/KMXn4KsOgG

[Paul May @mrpaulmay]

One of the best investigative stories I've read in years, by @KSI .

An Interpol-wanted druglord running around as a pro footballer on astroturf, with his team-mates wondering why he was so terrible at football 😅👌

Comedy is an underrated sub-genre of investigative reporting.

[Kevin Sieff @ksieff]

Sebastián Marset is among the world's most important drug traffickers. But while authorities hunted him across the globe, he was hiding in plain sight: Marset was the starting midfielder on a professional soccer team he had purchased. Part 1 of our series: https://t.co/0RfRjRG2Cu

[VSquare @VSquare_Project]

🇰🇬We stand with journalists jailed in Kyrgyzstan. Investigative journalism in an oppressive regime takes courage. We are calling for the release of our colleagues! #FreeKyrgyz11 @FRONTSTORY_PL @DelfiEE @Atlatszo @ICJK_sk @investigace_cz Siena @rebaltica

[VSquare @VSquare_Project]

💻 Cytrox makes millions exporting the Predator spyware. Until last summer, its director, who was legally responsible for this company, was a Czech pensioner – unbeknownst to her. Read the investigation by @FRONTSTORY_PL and @investigace_cz’s reporters: https://t.co/4Qk97oXBKI

[Paul May @mrpaulmay]

https://t.co/uzeUOOABQX

[Riham Alkousaa @RihamKousa]

We are a registered hiking club in Germany, mostly Syrians from all over Germany.
We went on a hike in Saxony Switzerland today and came back to our hostel to find police waiting for us.
Someone called police that a group of foreigners was seen and reported as illegal refugees!

[Paul May @mrpaulmay]

@ExTechOp Hope to give you something even more interesting to read :) https://t.co/WeoxBRwkDN

[Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project @OCCRP]

Organized criminals smuggling cocaine through Europe’s commercial ports have historically had to corrupt long chains of port personnel, from crane operators to customs inspectors.

Now they have hackers on their side.

#Narcofiles: The New Criminal Order https://t.co/3Mp3SdmOku

[Paul May @mrpaulmay]

@UID_ Hope to give you something even more interesting to read :)

https://t.co/WeoxBRwkDN

[Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project @OCCRP]

Organized criminals smuggling cocaine through Europe’s commercial ports have historically had to corrupt long chains of port personnel, from crane operators to customs inspectors.

Now they have hackers on their side.

#Narcofiles: The New Criminal Order https://t.co/3Mp3SdmOku