Supported projects

Research by journalists Eelco van Wieringen (Buro Publieke Werken, Holland), Micael Pereira (Expresso Portugal) and Twan Kroon (researcher, Holland) shows that the age of port wines is often incorrect. They commissioned scientific research into the actual age of 10 and 20 year old Tawny ports. In more than half of the cases, the bottles appear to contain too young port.

BRUSSELS - The identities of eight Russian "undeclared intelligence officers" who Nato recently expelled from Brussels shed light on the Russian espionage threat in Belgium, which also hosts EU institutions.

Argos investigated the investments of 1100 Dutch companies through subsidiaries or joint ventures in China. Together they are investing a total of 16 billion euros in China, which would make the Netherlands the second largest investor in China in Europe. 

DAMASCUS - Every month, crimes committed in Syria since 2011 have repercussions on European soil and lead to new actions, thanks to the involvement of Syrian lawyers and human rights defenders. Mazen, Maryam, Anwar, and Hadi and many other defenders of justice and human rights track down suspected criminals, collect evidence and documents to bring these criminals in front of European courts in the name of the principle of universal jurisdiction.

A cross-border team of journalists has focused on the potential corruption of solar energy support in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. More specifically, in the Czech Republic, the government has been postponing the changes to law allowing the state-guaranteed price of solar electricity to match the decline in investment in solar electricity. 

Le Monde and The Investigative Desk delved into the multi-layered world of Big Tobacco’s 21st century astroturfing. They discovered that under the guise of defending individual freedom, fake consumer organisations are promoting e-cigarettes. 

After the 2008 crash, a few Wall Street investors cracked the code for how to turn cut-price homes into a tradeable asset class worth billions. By 2021, the template they created is being adapted by diverse financial actors, ranging from private equity giants to PropTech apps. 

SAMOS-KOS - This cross-border independent investigation focuses on the newly opened “closed controlled access center” on the island of Samos. The first “pilot project of the European Union” that opened on the 18th of September this year and was entirely financed (43 Million Euros) by a fund of the EU-Commission, which vowed to “No Moria Morias”, after Europe's biggest refugee Camp Moria, on the Greek island of Lesvos burned down last year.  

Beekeepers in Europe are struggling. Over the past decades, European policies, and especially the Common Agricultural Programme (CAP), have promoted the industrialisation of agriculture, leaving no space for bees to thrive and exposing them to many harms, such as pesticides. 

GERMANY - xHamster is one of the most visited porn websites in Germany and the world. The xHamster bosses have been in hiding for years. Now research reveals for the first time two leading figures behind Germany's most visited porn site.