The infamously secretive gathering of global elites known as the Bilderberg Group is underway this week at the Grove Hotel, a golf resort in the United Kingdom’s Watford, Hertfordshire.

Each year since 1954 between 120-150 political leaders and major players in international industry, finance and academia have gathered for the Bilderberg conference in a heavily-guarded location. Billed as an informal discussion amongst some of the world’s most influential denizens, Bilderberg organizers say the meeting is intended as an opportunity to discuss “megatrends and the major issues facing the world.”

This year, according to the Bilderberg group website, around 140 participants from 21 European and North American countries are in attendance at the meeting.

The group lists key topics of discussion as follows:

• Can the US and Europe grow faster and create jobs?

• Jobs, entitlement and debt

• How big data is changing almost everything

• Nationalism and populism

• US foreign policy

• Africa’s challenges

• Cyber warfare and the proliferation of asymmetric threats

• Major trends in medical research

• Online education: promise and impacts

• Politics of the European Union

• Developments in the Middle East

• Current affairs

Critics of Bilderberg’s secretive meetings credit Bilderberger’s with clandestine manipulation of international affairs over the decades causing military conflict and strife for certain populations. Some people also believe that Bilderbergers have an especially heavy interest in global economic manipulation and are even involved in picking candidates for U.S. Presidential elections.

The late journalist Jim Tucker spent 25 years working to lift Bilderberg’s veil of secrecy. In his 2005 book, Bilderberg Diary, Tucker offers readers a backstory on some of the powerful elite with strong ties to the conference. He also explains how the group may have had a direct hand in the implementation of the U.S.’s Federal Reserve system:

The roots of Bilderberg go back centuries, when international moneychangers would secretly manipulate the economy to enrich themselves and enslave ordinary people. The Rothschilds of Britain and Europe have met secretly with other financiers for centuries, as did the Rockefellers of America. In the beginning, the Rothschilds were “Red Shields” because of the ornament on their door and the Rockefellers of Germany were “Rye Fields” because of their crops. One of the most significant such meetings took place in the spring of 1908, led by Sen. Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island, whose family married into the Rockefeller clan, accounting for the late Gov. Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller’s given name. It was held on Jekyll Island off the Georgia coast. The late B.C. Forbes, editor of Forbes magazine, reported what transpired at this meeting of the world’s wealthy. With Aldrich were Henry Davidson, of J.P. Morgan and Co.; Frank Vanderlip, president of the National City Bank; Paul Warburg, of Kuhn Loeb and Co., and A. Piatt Andrew, assistant secretary of the treasury. They emerged from this secret meeting with a plan for “a scientific currency system for the United States.” They had the power to pressure Congress into establishing the Federal Reserve Board, a private group of bankers who meet to shape the money supply. But in 1954, the international financiers decided that the world had become so small, and their interests intersected so often, that they must have regular, annual meetings. That year, they met at the Bilderberg Hotel in Holland, and took the name “Bilderberg” for themselves. They have met behind sealed-off walls and armed guards at plush resorts ever since. Secrecy prevailed briefly, until the late journalist, Westbrook Pegler, exposed Bilderberg in 1957. However, Chatham House rules have remained in effect, whereby meetings are held privately and attendees are prohibited from talking on the record about what transpired.

With no access for journalists— except for the heads of major media organizations who are members of the conference, and sworn to secrecy— little can be known about what happens behind closed doors during the conference. This year, however, the conference organizers reportedly set up a zone in close proximity to the conference, provided journalists with a list of attendees and even a “media contact” email address. Reports indicate that the contact address was then promptly removed from the website and many queries went unanswered.

Charlie Skelton, writing for the British news outlet The Guardian, said that he was one of the lucky journalists to receive a reply—even if it leaves much to be desired:

Before the media contact was snatched away, I did manage a friendly email exchange, and my questions were promptly answered by a spokesman for the conference. The gist of the answers was this: none of the delegates pay to attend; no delegates join by phone or satellite; the conference programme “never includes any entertainment or performances”; and, as for the food, it’s “buffet only, all days, all meals”.

Skelton also reports that there may be a substantial amount of internal pressure from some Bilderberg attendees to provide more public information about the goings on of the conference.

But the massive security presence, checkpoints and restricted access areas outside of the conference in Watford this year make it clear that if transparency is on the agenda, it will come slowly.

Find below a list of attendees provided by Bilderberg organizers: