Supported projects

KABUL - Each year, 115 tonnes of heroin from Afghan poppy fields is exported to Europe. Who wins? Who loses? And what is the impact of lucrative drug smuggling on people who live along this Balkan route?

CANNES - Despite a European directive on joint jurisdiction on confiscated goods, actual European monitoring is virtually nonexistent. European criminal organisations take advantage of this lack of solid jurisdiction.

MANILA - There is a vast global and growing demand for webcam child sex. Every hour at least 750,000 pedophiles and other sex predators are cyber hunting minors. Investigative journalist Pierre Vandenbrugghe (alias) descends into this vastly expanding, new branch of cyber pornography in the ...

JUAREZ - "How much you own, that's how much you're worth. That's how it works here. For us poor people, there's no justice." Susana's daughter Lupita went into town 6 years ago to buy shoes. She never came back. There are thousands of Lupitas in Juárez, Mexico. Lynn Cornelis and Sofie Meelberghs ...

OMARURU - The Italian mafia has established a hidden but lethal presence in Africa. Its members own diamond mines, nightclubs and land, all with the complicity of corrupt regimes.

STANLEYTOWN - In 1964 some 2000 hostages were saved out of the hands of Congolese rebels by Belgian para troopers. But the events behind that success story paved the way for the autocratic regime of President Mobutu.

NIVELLES - 17 Raids between 1982 and 1985, 28 dead, more than 40 injured, barely 175,000 euros in loot and no one convicted. The Nivelles Gang is the largest unresolved judicial file in Belgium. Hilde Geens did what someone rarely does: she read the judicial files about the Nivelles Gang and ...

HERSTAL - Belgian military forces in Mali are at risk of being shot with Belgian weapons and munition that have fallen into the hands of Islamic rebels. The weapons come from Libya but were furnished by previous Belgian governments, material evidence and archive research shows. They have been ...

KINSHASA - Congolese-Australian journalist Eric Mwamba went on a search to find the secret behind the riches of the Congolese elite. Many of his witnesses prefered staying anonymous for fear of their lives – which looks like a kind of Congolese omerta. John Vandaele selected Mwamba’s strongest ...

JUAREZ - From 2009 until 2011, Dutch war photographer Teun Voeten focused his attention on the drug-related violence that has been destabilising Mexico. He visited Ciudad Juárez, the epicentre of the violence, as well as other hotspots such as Culiacán and Michoacán.

BRASILIA - Several tens of thousands of illegal Brazilians work on Belgian construction sites. They are also known as the 'new Poles'. Journalists Nico Schoofs and Filip Michiels from the magazine Vacature expose the shady business behind the exploitation of these cheap workers.

KIEV - For more than 40 years Tatyana Jablonskaya's name and signature have been the pride of soviet realism's paintings. Her masterpieces, vibrant, popular scenes of a dream life in the USSR, illustrated communist propaganda appearing everywhere from reproductions in schoolbooks and political ...

ROTTERDAM - A taboo-breaking story about the hidden problem of incest in immigrant families in the Netherlands.

SALÉ - On 27 July, Abdelkader Belliraj was sentenced to life imprisonment by the court in Salé. The Moroccan judicial authorities found that Belliraj had committed six murders in Belgium, smuggled weapons into Morocco, laundered money, and led a terrorist network.

COPENHAGEN - Danish police are investigating the inner workings of the 'Nonstop Bio Cinerotic' porn cinema, which rents out rooms to Nigerian sex slaves in Copenhagen's red light district. Until very recently, one of the directors of the cinema was Guy Paquot, a Belgian knight and top executive of ...

BRUSSELS - Belgium is home to countless international organisations, as well as a large number of politically active refugees and migrants. This makes our country attractive to espionage and foreign intelligence services.