Supported projects

DHAKA - Faced with poverty and lack of opportunities, young Bangladeshis often dream of a better life in Europe that will allow them to provide for their families. Dalaals or ‘travel agents’ encourage and capitalise upon these hopes. Among those that take the risky journey to Italy known as 'the ...

PRAGUE - 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 postponed changes to the law that would allow the state-guaranteed price of solar power to ...

CAIRO - After Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was elected president in May 2014, several amendments were made to the public procurement law that allowed the Egyptian military to further tighten its grip on the economy. The amendments helped army-affiliated companies reap the lion's share of major public ...

DJOEBA - Although best known as an oil producer, South Sudan has significant gold deposits, with activity largely dominated by artisanal mining.

CRAIOVA - A team of journalists investigated the connections between an institution for Romanian democracy and a crime group, who sustained together a corruption network violating law and blocking controls to favor their political leaders. 

CALABRIA - This two-part series, based on two years of research by reporters from IrpiMedia and OCCRP, explores how the 'Ndrangheta's network operates.

ROTTERDAM - In the fight against drugs crime in their ports, the mayors of Rotterdam (Aboutaleb) and Antwerp (De Wever), kicked off in 2019 a more intensive collaboration between their ports. The big meeting took place behind closed doors at the Feyenoord Stadium.

MEXICO CITY - La Civil tells the story of Cielo, a mother in search of her daughter, abducted by a criminal cartel in Northern Mexico. As the authorities fail to offer support in the search, Cielo takes matters into her own hands and turns from housewife into avenging activist. The story was ...

DAMASCUS - The Syrian government has raised billions of Syrian pounds to rebuild war-stricken cities through a "reconstruction tax." But where does the money really go? A joint investigation by OCCRP, SIRAJ, and Finance Uncovered, supported by Journalismfund's Money Trail grant programme.

ACCRA, ABUJA - This story puts the spotlight on a clandestine network of gunsmiths and arms traffickers operating in West Africa in contravention of local laws. It shows how these gunsmiths and traffickers exploit the porous borders across the West Africa and Sahel region to traffic illicit small ...

FREETOWN - Sierra Leone is one of the least developed countries in the world. Two of the main out of many challenges the West African state is facing are rampant corruption and some of the lowest educational outcomes worldwide.

STOCKHOLM - In Sweden there are more than 200,000 Syrians. They are considered to be the largest immigrant Arabic-speaking community in that country. The Swedish tourist bureaus provide services to transport a large number of Syrians to their home countries.

BANGUI - In March 2013, South Africa suffered its worst military defeat since the end of apartheid. After a battle that lasted almost two days, 200 crack troops who engaged 7,000 rebels in the Central African Republic were forced to negotiate a ceasefire at their base. Thirteen South African ...

AMSTERDAM / BRUSSELS - In February 2021 a Dutch and a Belgian newspaper included a 16 page supplement about the Money Trail project. The booklet featured four full Money Trail stories, plus a 'Stories behind the Stories' section, which revealed how the journalists went about to do their research and ...

DODOMA - Almost $176m that belonged to the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) at Barclays Bank disappeared mysteriously and landed on a Tanzanian national. The funds for putting up 1,000 school structures to accommodate 45,000 poor students in Africa, ended up in a group of people in Tanzania ...

AL HOCEIMA - During the summer holidays, Europeans with a Moroccan migration background flock to Al Hoceima. For two months, the tourist resort in the Rif region is flourishing and there is work again. But it's only a little solace for the Rifine population that has to deal with a corrupt government ...

AMSTERDAM - Illegally logged teak from South Sudan goes to India where it is made into furniture before it could end up in stores in Europe. Indian timber traders illegally source the timber from East Africa and export it as an 'Indian' product after processing.

ACCRA, ABUJA – This investigation exposes a hidden network of Chinese control and ownership of many industrial fishing vessels operating in Ghanaian and Nigerian waters in contravention of local laws.

ISTANBUL - This investigation blows the whistle on the phenomenon of brokers who, with the complicity of Turkish civil servants, help to move forward the citizenship applications of Syrians in return for bribes. On the other hand, more than five thousand Syrians’ files remained pending until they ...

An Indonesian state-owned aircraft manufacturer allegedly paid more than 10 million euro in kickbacks to dozens of high-ranked politicians and army officials. The company disguised the payments as a ‘marketing fee’, using fictitious partners.

SOMONIYON - Tajikistan has abundant water resources and has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in improving access to and supply of water. However, millions of Tajik residents still struggle to access running water, let alone clean water.

A Dutch fishing giant is involved in a corruption affair and tax evasion scheme concerning fishing quotas in Namibia. The money trail goes via Poland and Iceland.

MINSK / VILNIUS - A cross-border investigation by Lithuanian and Belarusian journalists follows the trail of Alexander Zaytsev and Aliaksei Aleksin, two Belarusian businessmen considered to be close to the Alexander Lukashenko's regime.

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.

NAIROBI - The three legs of this investigation reveal:

Kenya's enormous betting addiction;

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;

SportPesa has been sucking profits out of its ...

CONAKRY - A team of journalists followed the money, investigating Guineagate, a corruption case that involved a French national promoting the interests of a private company that sought a mining license at Simandou Mountains, the world’s largest known deposits of untapped iron.

PODGORICA - The Malta-based Shift News in collaboration with the largest Montenegrin daily DAN launched an investigation into the Sino-Maltese wind farm project in Montenegro underhandedly backed by Montenegro's ruling clique and Azerbaijani businesses present both in Malta and Montenegro.

MANOKWARI - This investigation examines a $22 million 'consultancy fee' paid by one of the world's largest palm oil conglomerates, the Korindo Group, to acquire of a shell company that held permits to establish an oil palm plantation in Indonesia's easternmost province of Papua.

BRUSSELS - A lot goes wrong with our tax collection. There are so many loopholes that the tax authorities collect a lot less than what the state is entitled to. This is one of the reasons why the government has to borrow and why we have a large national debt.

YAOUNDE - Over the past decades, a handful of Israelis have overseen and trained elite units of the Cameroonian army. Their paid services brought them millions of dollars, which they invested around the world. Meanwhile, the army unit they've trained, the BIR, has committed extensive human rights ...