Supported projects

HARARE - Gold is Zimbabwe's chief export product. However, partly because of the country's monetary policy, an estimate of 50% of artisanal and small-scale mined gold in Zimbabwe is lost to smuggling, causing bloody turf wars that have claimed hundreds of lives.

The three legs of this investigation reveal:

1. Kenya's enormous betting addiction;
2. At the same time the Kenyan government removed a tax for betting companies, a cousin of Kenya's president accumulated a financial stake in betting giant SportPesa;
3. SportPesa has been sucking profits out of its lucrative Kenyan business by paying millions of pounds to a software company it owns in the UK.

LAGOS - This series of investigations exposes the consequences of yearlong corruption in the construction and oil sectors on Nigerian life conditions, and the dodgy relationship between oil businessmen and corrupt politicians in the country.

NIGERIA, GERMANY - In the 1970s Nigerian students founded a fraternity to fight against oppression and racism. Today, their name appears worldwide in connection with criminal activities. What happened?

BUSIA, UGANDA - This story shows how the lapse in the law coupled by porous border points and tax difference is fuelling cross-border beer smuggling between Uganda and Kenya.

It depicts the colossal sums of revenues lost due to the illicit alcohol trade that is thriving between Busia, and Malaba, Uganda’s main border points and leading import from the sea route.

ACCRA, LAGOS - This story identifies the lapses in the current tax systems and how Ghana and Nigeria are dealing with profit shifting and tax avoidance. It exposes how major tech companies, Facebook and Google, use tax havens to avoid payment of taxes in Nigeria and Ghana, depriving these countries of revenue which could be invested in many deprived areas.

AMSTERDAM, NAIROBI - Dutch flower growers in Kenya avoid corporate taxation, using transfer pricing and offshore constructions. The loss of tax revenue due to these practices is substantial and has large consequences for Kenyan society.

MUMBAI - This story focuses on the suicide epidemic of Indian farmers related to over-indebtedness. For the first time the names of the lenders and their donors involved in the farmers' suicides due to overindebeteness are uncovered.

BELGIUM - When is the use of a subsidy for an independent entrepreneur justified and when is there abuse? Sofie Van Nuffel came across statements that suggest that not everything can be guaranteed by trust alone. 

BUCHAREST - The need of Italian mafia networks to carry out vast money-laundering operations took them to Romania and Bulgaria. They set up companies that not only succeeded in flying under the radar but also won government contracts.