Matei Rosca

Happy new year to all. 2024 is in the rearview mirror now, and it was the busiest year I’ve had since I started working as a reporter in 2012. It was hard and stressful, lots of ups and downs and legal wrangling behind the scenes but I am proud of every story I did. Unlike other years, I’ve only done exclusive investigations in 2024, in collaboration with several publications. Here they are:

1. February: I revealed that a glam London townhouse belonging to a sanctioned Kremlin official remained unfrozen due to sophisticated offshore structures obscuring its ultimate ownership (ICIJ) – the month after this story came out the property was frozen.

2. March: I revealed that a UK/ Swiss crypto firm with top political connections in London has moved money, perhaps inadvertently, to a crypto account connected to a man who turned out to be a Russian arms dealer and was later sanctioned (ICIJ and The Guardian).

3. March again: With Martin Laine and Tanya Kozyreva, I reported how a Russia-based crypto exchange which was also sanctioned, maintained links with major global crypto companies as well as Kremlin-connected people and companies, including a man who was accused of organised crime (with Delfi Estonia and ICIJ).

4. March again: I reported on the Kremlin links of an Uzbek tycoon who had been buying up strategic industrial companies in Europe after the invasion of Ukraine (reporter.london, my own website).

5. April: I reported with Matt Bernardini how a financial supporter of Donald Trump’s social media startup had links to online sales of “male enhancement” pills that regulators warned might be dangerous (Daily Beast). Congratulations to Mr Trump for winning the election, by the way.

6. May: I reported on the ties between Caribbean-based Paxum Bank (owned by the same Trump social media financier mentioned above), and one of the Tate brothers (ICIJ).

7. August: Further evidence emerged of this banking connection and it turned out to involve both Tate brothers (ICIJ).

8. October: I reported alongside colleagues that a top adviser to a former NATO official and presidential election contender in Romania had strong links to a Russian businessman who in turn had acted as a pro-Kremlin propagandist in Ukraine (with OCCRP, Context.ro, Dossier Center, Delfi Estonia, Rise Moldova).

9. November: I worked on the team that delivered ICIJ’s marquee project for 2024 – Caspian Cabals, digging into the international financial and lobbying connections behind Kazakhstan’s massive oil industry. Apart from my reporting, I was very pleased to have many of the pictures I took on a work trip to Kazakhstan being used, as well as some I took here in London. European real estate breakout story here.

10. November again: Exclusive analysis in collaboration with a London-based expert and a Ukraine-based software company shows broad support by Kremlin-affiliated media for conspiracy theorist Calin Georgescu, the anti-Western candidate in the (now canceled) Romanian presidential election. (With Context.ro).

I tend to consider it a good year if I get two or three of these babies done, but in 2024, with help from great colleagues from several countries and newsrooms, there were ten. Whether it’s by luck or the world becoming increasingly chaotic (and therefore riper for investigative journalism) I can’t say – but one thing is certain. 2024 has taken a lot out of me. A lot of pressure goes with producing this type of journalism, especially when I am the only one publishing via reporter.london, and I am hoping for a more restful 2025.

I initially posted this article on my LinkedIn profile here.

I have left POLITICO at the end of April. I will focus on making documentaries about economic crime and human trafficking in the coming months, and in the meantime I will be publishing my journalism with a team of digital desperados I am putting together at Reporter.London – a website I’ve bought recently, which I aim to make into a proper modern news agency and production company.

This is the most terrifying thing I’ve done in my life and that’s saying something given the sticky situations I’ve been in at various times in the past. But it’s also the most exhilarating, and if nothing comes of it, I’ll always be able to get back to ordinary reporting jobs.

The team at POLITICO have been brilliant over the past three and almost a half years in Brussels and London, and I will miss working with such sharp professionals. This move is not a reflection on them or the title. It’s that I’ve been feeling increasingly that online journalism in recent years has been straying from the purpose I’ve had in mind when I was homeless in London 10 years ago as I gave everything up in my country of birth to migrate and get involved in this trade. And I believe there’s a different way to do things. A way to transmit to the reader not just the news and analysis, but also the sense of joy and mischief that the reporter feels when working the beat. To focus on the content as much as the package, and to be driven by intelligence on the ground rather than the latest Twitter trend.

Reporter.London will only do exclusive, original journalism that you can’t read, hear or watch anywhere else. We will publish it on our own as well as in partnership with established media, which is already increasingly outsourcing investigative work to specialised groups. We will also aim over time to become comfortable across platforms and mediums, from tabloid formats, to TikTok, long reads, quick morning hits and big feature film productions.

We will do heavy stories, tough stories, undercover jobs, stories that do damage where damage is just, and that will make us a lot of powerful enemies, so we will also be seeking financial support.

We’ll be revealing corporate and political malfeasance, organised crime, dirty money, and corruption, with a global audience in mind, but also focusing, for now at least, on the regions of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Returning to first principles of investigation, reporting and publishing is going to be horribly difficult but doubtless very rewarding at times. And we will also do fun, colourful features, revelatory profiles and interviews with important people, including through the hip medium of a podcast.

Later there will be satirical essays, polemic, cartoons, and who knows what else, as the mood and the sourcing takes us.

It’s mine to lose, people. This idea has been eating at me for a few years and if I’m going to fail I won’t feel any shame, although I decided it’s better to fail now than later.

Thanks for reading, and thanks especially to my supportive family and friends who encouraged me instead of telling me to seek psychiatric help (some did both). If you want to get in contact I’m easy to find.

Closing this out with a link to my articles on POLITICO and a list of the ones I liked most below. The rough date of launch for the new site is pencilled in as May 30.

• Romanian reporters call for action after facing threats & intimidation
• From Londongrad to Kremlin foe: City turns on Kremlin business
• Romania hit by cyberattacks at start of Ukraine war: official
• Campaigners demand protection for UK whistleblowers to give Russian sanctions bite
• Under US pressure, UK Tories pledge to change tack on dirty money
• Klaus Iohannis: Romanian president loses luster as graft fears stalk new government
• Sudan general warns country could be source of refugees to Europe [POLITICO]
• British Virgin Islands leader pushes back on UK corruption probe [POLITICO]
• City of London seeking more action, not words, on deregulation [POLITICO]
• Moldova on pro-EU course after election
• NGO Global Witness accused of negligence after murder of Afghan informer [POLITICO]
• European Parliament flouts EU law over staff bank account rules
• UK struggles to get a handle on online fraud