USAID - Sleuthing the Dark Money Trail - Part 1

inquiryinvisible
Feb 9
2 min read

I temporarily paused #USAID news archiving in #Grok2 to prioritize integrating government spending data into my network. That’s when I uncovered something alarming:

Between 2012-2022, USAID funneled $3 billion into what is unmistakably a DARK MONEY operation. Keep reading…

This GraphXR hierarchal spending network visualizes USAID spending through primary awarding agency to contractors, structured as follows:

USAID (center) → Amount (green) → Recipient Company (brown) → Recipient Parent Company (red)

The data reveals three very distinct financial funnels. The names of these recipients? "(Undisclosed)."

Specifically:

MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN AWARDEES
FOREIGN AWARDEES (UNDISCLOSED)
DOMESTIC AWARDEES (UNDISCLOSED)

These appear consistently across every award issued from 2008-2025. Each green dot represents a payment. It's not unusual for organizations to cluster spending, but given USAIDs mysterious and intelligence related programs, I decided this was worth looking into. Seeking deeper insights, I switched to another tool so I could extract and visualize more detailed metrics.

Isolating the Data in Tableau

Using Tableau, I filtered contracts by their 'primary place of performance', where work was officially conducted.[Undisclosed] shows striking geographic patterns...

Payment Scale Variations

Examining the distribution, individual payments fluctuate wildly:

Largest transfer: $175 million for work in Afghanistan
Second-largest: $88 million in 2021, also in Afghanistan

The Logarithmic Perspective

Switching to a logarithmic scale, two distinct funding tiers emerge—at a 1:10 ratio. Over time, both frequency and scale of these payments increase significantly.

The Dark Finance Shift (2012-2021)

Between 2012-2021, a deliberate expansion of dark finance channels occurred—before abruptly returning to previous levels. $2.4 BILLION was pushed into unknown locations, with global redirections over time…

Where Did the Money Go?

Excluding the USA, these massive untraceable transfers flowed between:

Afghanistan
Congo
Kenya
Ukraine

The peaks don’t overlap. The funding is erratic. This strongly suggests centralized decision-making, controlled by a select few individuals.

The Big Questions

Why did this start?
Why did it stop?
Where did the money actually go?

I’m merging this with other databases to construct a comprehensive map of dark money in global governance. The patterns are emerging. The channels are becoming clear. This is just the beginning.

If we want real transparency, we need to follow the money—and expose who’s behind it.

Stay tuned.