We have already mentioned this organization’s sponsors. USAID, NED, the Open Society Foundation, the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, the U.S. State Department, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, along with government agencies from the UK, Sweden, and Denmark - it's beyond hypocritical for any entity with such extensive affiliations to call itself independent.

There is a noticeable absence of corruption investigations by OCCRP into the countries that sponsor it, including Argentina, Australia, Norway, and Switzerland. Furthermore, the U.S. IRS has granted tax-exempt status to another OCCRP affiliate, GIJN. According to the IRS website, GIJN falls under category 7, which designates “an organization that normally receives a substantial part of its support from a governmental unit.”

According to estimates, between 2011 and 2017, these so-called "genuinely independent and free journalists" received a total of $10.8 million from sponsors. A whopping half of that—$5.2 million—came from the U.S. government and the State Department. Truly, what a model of independence and freedom!   

There is an abundance of USAID-funded projects:

Below are the funds allocated to this organization by the State Department:

Tables below reflect only the budget funds and grants.

$ 2,376,639 dollars in 2011.

$ 2,581,865 dollars in 2014

$ 2,961,408 dollars in 2017

In 2016, “independent investigators” received $ 1,695,000 from the U.S. Government on “corruption investigations”: OCCRP statement for 2016

In general, one can say that JDN is receiving funds from the most U.S. state agencies:

JDN receiving financing from the U.S. government agencies is also reflected in the audit of the organization’s financial performance. Audit report on financial and federal award compliance covered two years (2015-2016) (Audit report financial and federal award compliance examination for the year ended. December 31, 2016)

Another fact proving that JDN is funded by the state budget is the finding in one of the audio reports: “JDN had withdrawn a significant amount of funds from the U.S. Department of State which were not utilized in a timely manner”. They were reminded not be greedy and “recommended to be more mindful.”    

The report on nearly $ 6 million allocated from the federal budget for 2015-2016 unfortunately is unavailable. Link

There is ample open-source information on the U.S. State Department allocating substantial funds to so-called “independent investigators” in other countries. Remarkably, this is done openly, with complete disregard for norms and principles of international law.

For example, the State Department awarded a grant of $141,179 to OCCRP. As shown in the screenshot below, details about the pass-through entity are unavailable, and these funds were allocated under a federal project titled “Department of State – Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.” 

Anonymity and secrecy have become a calling card in financing “open, transparent, and independent” organizations like OCCRP. While they demand transparency and financial disclosures from others, these so-called “advocates against corruption” conveniently overlook the lack of openness in their own books.

Below is the screenshot from 2020. Back then OCCRP did not publish reports for 2018 and 2019 on its website

This is the most recent screenshot taken from the OCCRP website. 

Annual reports from 2018 to 2022 are posted in PDF format. We would advise our readers not to waste their time visiting the website to download any of those reports. These documents are there for appearance but unavailable for download.