Prosecutors in France are investigating a network of alleged shell companies that paid tens of millions of euros to the Tory donor Lycamobile last year.
The money was supposed to be for the purchase of tens of millions of minutes of international phone calls. However, prosecutors say the tiny firms had no way of using that much airtime and the transactions appeared "disconnected from all economic reality". Police raided Lycamobile's headquarters and arrested 19 people on suspicion of money laundering this week, after BuzzFeed News revealed the company's suspicious cash movements last year. The company did not respond to repeated requests for comment before this article was published but strongly denied all the allegations in a statement sent days later.
BuzzFeed News' UK investigations team visited 19 of the alleged shell companies and found they were registered at abandoned offices, PO boxes, construction sites, and fake addresses.
Oh, and we took pictures.