City AM investigation exposes the market behind defamatory websites

A two-part investigation by City AM has traced how defamatory websites across the UK and Ukraine sell negative coverage to paying clients. It reaches all the way from a council flat in Essex to anti-corruption portals in Kyiv. Journalist Steve Dinneen spent months on the story. He found a network of fake local news outlets in Britain, then a wider international trade in which rival groups place hit pieces for cash.

City AM uses the term "pink slime" for these sites. Victims, lawyers and reputation managers who contacted the newspaper had other names for them: junk news, mushroom sites, pay-to-display. In each case they described the same thing. Allegations about a person or company ran across many sites and several countries at once, made to look like independent reporting.

A London newsroom nobody could find

The investigation started with the London Post. The site publishes a steady stream of local stories, most of them recycled press releases under a generic byline. Mixed in were long, detailed attacks on businessmen from the former Soviet states, along with promotions for unregulated crypto casinos.

City AM traced the London Post to 2Trom Media Group, which also ran Essex TV, Manchester TV, Midlands TV and The Daily Brit. The company's own website lists Moscow Media Group among its owners, a PR network previously linked to the Kremlin. Dinneen visited every address on file. These included a ground-floor flat in Harlow, a residential block in Leyton, a flat near Turnpike Lane and a business centre in Letchworth. Nobody at any of them recognised the company. Its listed owner, Viktor Tokarev, appears on official filings and almost nowhere else. Several people told City AM they doubt he exists.

A former senior figure told the newspaper the brands had since been moved into shell companies with generic names, so the directors couldn't be identified.

Uzbek financier Ovik Mkrtchyan later sued the London Post and Tokarev at the High Court over one of its articles. He was awarded more than £220,000 in damages and costs after the defendants failed to appear. The article stayed online for weeks after the ruling.

An operator admits the model

The second part of the investigation produced an unusual admission. City AM emailed Leeds TV, a former student television channel that now runs AI-written local news alongside attacks on wealthy figures from the former Soviet Union. The person who replied signed off as an anonymous "watchman of the freedom of speech". He said the site accepts payment from Kazakh clients, Ukrainian oligarchs and crypto gambling operators to publish stories. He claimed a co-owner came from Ukraine. He also dismissed the London Post as a Moscow-linked rival that sells placements for £100 to £500.

Dinneen concluded that there is no single network. Instead there are competing factions, each serving clients according to its own politics.

The Ukrainian anti-corruption front

City AM's reporting led to Ukraine, where several sources said campaigns against them had started. The newspaper focused on Antikor. The site presents itself as a national anti-corruption portal, complete with a coat of arms. Ukrainian authorities blocked it in 2025.

Julian Khorunzhiy of Kyiv law firm Ario told City AM his firm had represented a Ukrainian bank against Antikor. Antikor had accused the bank of laundering drug money, and a court found those claims false. Ario counted 20 Antikor articles about the bank between 2017 and 2026, with similar material on other sites and Telegram channels. Khorunzhiy said the firm is now acting for a second client against the portal.

Medical consultancy owner Vladislav Smirnov showed City AM a spreadsheet of more than 100 articles about himself. On a single day in January, one story appeared on 17 websites, many with identical formatting. Antikor sent City AM a firm denial. It said it does not take payment to publish or delete stories.

Who pays, and why

London law firm Schillings told City AM that its Junk News Team now tracks more than 350 such sites. That number rose 355% between 2023 and 2024, which the firm links to cheap AI-generated content. Partner Juliet Young said the goal is often to cause banking and compliance problems. Articles are packed with words like "sanctions" so that due diligence screening picks them up.

A London investment firm founder spoke to City AM under a pseudonym. He described more than 20 articles about him appearing within a month, many in countries he had never visited. He believes the campaign was meant to discourage him from testifying in a fraud case. He testified anyway and won.

Reputation adviser Michael Macfarlane described a payment pyramid. A buyer pays intermediaries in crypto, and those intermediaries pass the work through several layers of agencies before anything is published. He said he could start a campaign within a couple of hours for a few hundred dollars. On going to court, he was blunt. A victim could spend £117,000 on legal fees, he said, to win against "a man who might not exist".

Beyond City AM

Other reporting on Antikor fills in details City AM didn't cover. According to Ukrainian coverage of the case, an undercover journalist was quoted $12,000 in crypto for a year of article removals and protection from new ones. The Antikor trademark sits with a Panama foundation, and law enforcement has named a former parliamentary assistant, Kostyantyn Chernenko, as the alleged organiser. Court filings in a separate US case showed near-identical IP addresses shared by Antikor, Kompromat1, Ruskompromat and Antimafia sites.

Defamatory websites in the network

The following domains have been documented publishing duplicate or near-identical content:

Antikor: antikor.com.ua, antikor.info, antikor.ua

Kompromat1: kompromat1.online, kompromat1.info, kompromat1.net, kompromat1.org, kompromat1.media, kompromat1.one, kompromat1.se, kompromat1.press, kompromat1.world

Compromat / Ruskompromat: compromat.pro, compromat-pro.com, kompromat.press, ruskompromat.info, ruskompromat.ru, ruskompromat.pro

Vlasti: vlasti.io, vlasti.se, vlasti.info, vlasti.live, vlasti.vip, vlst.live, vlast.guru

Antimafia: antimafia.se, antimafia.io, antimafia.life, antimaf.pro

Rumafia: rumafia.news, rumafia.io, rumafia.net, rumafia.online

Kartoteka: kartoteka.news, kartoteka.se, kartoteka.press, kartoteka.io

Glavk: glavk.se, glavk.info, glavk.net

Hab.media: hab.media, news.hab.media, crime.hab.media, corruption.hab.media

Sledstvie: sledst.org, sledst.com, sledstvie.info

Nocor: nocor.info, nocor.life

Novosti: novosti.cloud, novostiua.org, novostiua.online

Other linked outlets: repost.news, rozsliduvach.info, rucriminal.info, adcon.info, luxherald.com, lstv.co.uk, obriy.news, politica2.info, ukrainci.com.ua, oplatru24.ru, rp.rv.ua, drama.live