
Editor in chief @FbdnStories ; Investigative Reporter; @ICIJ Member; Fellow'16 @UMknightwallace; #luxleaks#panamapapers et al https://xitter.cf/t.co/Tevk0V5vNJ
Paris, France
Joined April 2008
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Our investigation.
🔴🇺🇸 [#DeportationProject] The Office of Remigration: “America First” and its overseas negotiations.
Behind the Trump administration’s third-country deportation system is a little-known Department of State: the Office of Remigration.
Tomorrow morning!
🇺🇸#DeportationProject [NEW REVELATIONS TOMORROW]: We will take you inside the Trump administration's secret deals to expel people worldwide.
Stay tuned.
...
🔴 ”Un tel jugement envoie un signal d’impunité terrible à l’ensemble de la société maltaise.” - @laurentrichard0
🇲🇹 À Malte, Yorgen Fenech, l’homme d’affaires accusé d’avoir commandité l’assassinat de la journaliste Daphne Caruana Galizia, a été acquitté par un tribunal.
edperrin retweeted
Grâce au témoignage d'un ex-agent de la DGST marocaine, recueilli par le journaliste Hicham Mansouri, l'enquête de @FbdnStories confirme l'utilisation massive du logiciel espion par le royaume chérifien. Deux journalistes de Mediapart en ont été victimes.
mediapart.fr/journal/interna…
edperrin retweeted
De nouveaux documents et témoignages révélés par @FbdnStories prouvent que le Royaume du Maroc est bien derrière l’utilisation du logiciel espion #Pegasus contre le président @EmmanuelMacron, des ministres, opposants et journalistes (dont @Mediapart)👇
radiofrance.fr/franceinter/p…
edperrin retweeted
Xenia Fedorova obtient un titre de séjour en France, tandis qu’Ephrem Yalike-Ngonzo, journaliste à l’origine de l’enquête #PropagandaMachine sur la désinformation russe en Afrique, se voit refuser l’asile. En tant que président de la commission des affaires étrangères, de la défense et des forces armées, j’interpellerai le gouvernement sur cette incohérence.
🔴 Ephrem Yalike-Ngonzo, journaliste centrafricain réfugié en France, à l'origine de l’enquête #PropagandaMachine publiée par Forbidden Stories et ses partenaires en novembre 2024, s’est vu refuser l’asile par les autorités françaises.
🔗 forbiddenstories.org/fr/actu…
1/4
Pour que le teaser soit vraiment un teaser, il manque un Président de la République...
37 ans après, l’attentat du DC10 de la compagnie UTA est une blessure toujours ouverte.
Face à la raison d’Etat et aux intérêts politiques, les familles des 170 victimes attendent toujours des réponses.
🔴Attentat du DC10: le deuil impossible
#AffairesSensibles @FranceTV
edperrin retweeted
37 ans après, l’attentat du DC10 de la compagnie UTA est une blessure toujours ouverte.
Face à la raison d’Etat et aux intérêts politiques, les familles des 170 victimes attendent toujours des réponses.
🔴Attentat du DC10: le deuil impossible
#AffairesSensibles @FranceTV
edperrin retweeted
🔴🇲🇿 [New investigation] #MozambiqueExposed: Inside the machinery silencing journalists in Mozambique.
👉 While Mozambique remains largely under the radar of international media, the country is facing a deepening crackdown on press freedom.
edperrin retweeted
🇦🇫🎙️ « Ces vi*ls et ces vidéos, c’est une manière de nous faire taire ».
👉 Militante pour les droits des femmes et invitée régulière des radios afghanes, M. a été arrêtée à Kaboul en 2025 au prétexte d’un hijab mal ajusté. Détenue par la police des mœurs talibane, elle a subi des violences sexuelles et des menaces de diffusion d’images pour la réduire au silence.
Aujourd’hui en exil, elle témoigne auprès de Forbidden Stories sous anonymat. 1/6
edperrin retweeted
💥Heroes’ Square in Budapest is hosting the “anti-regime grand concert,” with tens of thousands bracing for the end of Viktor Orbán’s rule on Sunday. Chants of “Russians go home” are heard, while performers mock Orbán and Péter Szijjártó as servants of Vladimir Putin. 📸@444hu
Last instalment of our #PropagandaMachine serie
🔴 🇷🇺#PropagandaMachine 6 - Ghost Journalists, Cash and Kremlin Scripts: How Russian Operatives Tried To Influence Argentinian Media
➡️ Thanks to an unprecedented data leak obtained by @thecontinent_, today, we are able to reveal that “The Company”, a network run by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, reportedly spent around $280,000 commissioning roughly 250 articles in over 20 Argentinian media outlets. Our consortium identified at least four fake bylines as authors of these articles.
👉 Along with @openDemocracy, and @Filtra_Leaks, we contacted all media outlets cited in the internal documents as having published articles for “The Company.” All 15 interviewed by the consortium denied receiving payments from Russian agents.
🌍 This article is the final installment of our investigative series #PropagandaMachine, exposing Russian disinformation strategies across three continents.
📰 Read our latest investigation on our website: forbiddenstories.org/ghost-j…
@thecontinent_
@dossier_center
@openDemocracy
@istories_media
@aeowinpact
#Russia #Propaganda #Journalism #ForbiddenStories
edperrin retweeted
🔴 27.03.2026 - Orbán’s Inversion: The Spied-On Journalist Branded a Spy
Forbidden Stories stands in full support of investigative journalist @panyiszabolcs, with whom we have worked on multiple cross-border investigations, including the #Pegasus Project.
Panyi is a journalist who was himself targeted with the Pegasus spyware—and is now being accused of “espionage” by the Hungarian government. This reversal is as troubling as it is revealing.
These accusations come just weeks before national elections and follow his reporting, including with VSquare, on Russian influence operations and the proximity between Hungarian authorities and Moscow . His work serves the public interest. It is precisely why it is being attacked.
Turning a journalist into a suspect is a well-worn tactic: when facts are inconvenient, discredit the messenger.
We stand firmly with Szabolcs Panyi.
-
@laurentrichard0
Journalist
Founder & Executive Director
Forbidden Stories
"Accusing investigative journalists of espionage is virtually unprecedented in the 21st century for an EU member state. This is typical of Putin’s Russia, Belarus, and similar regimes."
‼️Statement on the Orbán Government Accusing Me, an Investigative Journalist, of Espionage‼️
Today, the Hungarian government has filed a complaint against me for espionage. Accusing investigative journalists of espionage is virtually unprecedented in the 21st century for an EU member state. This is typical of Putin’s Russia, Belarus, and similar regimes.
I have spent over a decade documenting how Russian spies and interests have penetrated Hungarian politics, so I am probably the least surprised by this.
Despite growing signs that the Hungarian government acts as a Kremlin ally and copies the Russian model, I still trust that parts of the Hungarian state—and the judiciary—follow the Hungarian constitution, not that of the Russian Federation.
I have never engaged in espionage. I see my work as journalistic counterintelligence—from exposing the hacking of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry by Russian actors to revealing the activities of Hungarian pro-Kremlin propagandists.
Defending myself publicly would be easier if I were not bound by source protection. But that remains my top priority. I cannot reveal who provides me information or what I receive, including from within Hungarian state structures.
If I were not a journalist, I could list many facts proving it is impossible for the Hungarian state to genuinely believe I am spying. Certain meetings, contacts, and information gathering could never have happened otherwise.
This baseless accusation now forces me to share details of a specific investigation, including a conversation with a confidential source that appears to have been wiretapped. Normally, this would appear in a finished article or my upcoming book—not here. (It will appear there as well.)
Since 2023, I have investigated whether the relationship between Péter Szijjártó and Russian officials exceeds legal limits. The published audio, where I’m heard talking to a source, mentions that communication between Szijjártó and Sergey Lavrov is recorded by EU intelligence services. Less attention has gone to my point that this relationship raises strong suspicion of political intelligence activity and influence operations in Russia’s interest.
These are serious claims and hard to prove. As a journalist, I cannot force anyone to speak or hand over documents. That is why gathering this information has taken so long—and why I spoke to that sensitive source (while the conversation was secretly recorded).
Serious claims require serious evidence, and I believe I have gathered some. I have not engaged in espionage.
I have not cooperated with any foreign intelligence service in surveilling Szijjártó. Instead, I tried to verify earlier fragments of information about Szijjártó–Lavrov communication.
I sought to identify the channels and phone numbers used, and whether a secret channel—possibly used by Russian intelligence—exists. In other words, whether Szijjártó uses a hidden device or number unknown even within the Hungarian Foreign Ministry.
This was only one part of my research. The other, more serious topic is this:
Since at least 2016–2017, EU and NATO intelligence services have had indications that large amounts of cash and precious stones may have been transported from Russia on Hungarian government aircraft or private jets used by government figures. Officials from at least six countries made such claims to me.
These signals did not come from monitoring Hungarian targets, but, for example, from intercepting Russian officials discussing or preparing such shipments.
Alongside Szijjártó–Lavrov communication, I examined how baggage screening and handling works on such flights, which officials travel with what luggage, whether more packages arrive from Moscow than depart, and how such shipments could be handled discreetly.
I know how serious this is, and I would not have written even this much—but since I do not know what else may be taken from the edited recording, or what fabricated accusations (like, for example, that I was seeking such details to commit terrorism) may follow, I believe I must share this now.
Why do I investigate all this?
According to many sources familiar with the Hungarian state and counterintelligence, there is no independent body in the Orbán system able to investigate or act if a senior official is suspected of espionage.
Government members direct intelligence services and set expectations. The services lack both tools and authority to investigate a government member.
I knew this would be difficult when I chose to pursue it. But few people in Hungary can or dare to do this, so I felt it was my duty.
We have now reached the point where the Orbán government—of which Szijjártó is still a member—aware of my reporting plans and the risk they pose, has preemptively accused me of espionage.
I am a Hungarian patriot. I serve the public. As an investigative journalist, my job is to hold power accountable. Neither political theater nor legal threats will deter me.
edperrin retweeted
I want to apologize to my followers that my feed is full of @buymeacoffee posts. There is an ongoing Orbán government–style, Russia-inspired smear campaign against me, aimed at discrediting my not even yet published story on the details of FM Péter Szijjártó’s leaks and communication with Sergey Lavrov.
The result is thousands of people showing their support and appreciation for my work, boosting my visibility like never before. The best advertisement one can get for my upcoming book on how Putin’s spies infiltrated Hungary and its political elite. Yes, that book is due in 2026.
And there are some great memes too—thanks to the anonymous author!
On this subject: our dear British friends have been calling their ships "Man Of War" for centuries, yet granted them a very unusual feminine gender all ther while. Go figure... youtube.com/watch?v=RSGa9a72…
edperrin retweeted
🤔 Beau nom et bel hommage.
À une période de confusionnisme total, cela rappelle au moins qu'il y a 85 ans, des gens d'opinions et de couleurs différentes ont eu le courage de se lever pour défendre en armes une idée, et lutter ensemble contre l'obscurantisme et la haine... 🙂
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edperrin retweeted
🔴🇷🇺 [New revelations] Sixty Russian agents identified: Prigozhin’s influence network taken over by the Foreign Intelligence Service.
#PropagandaMachine
























