Supported projects

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.

MALTA - The model for the privatisation of Malta’s public hospitals negotiated by now disgraced Minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Keith Schembri, with the approval of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, was exported to Balkan States with weak democratic structures that enable ...

ABIDJAN - In this story, investigative journalists Daan Bauwens and Nicholas Ibekwe focus on Highway 10, the transatlantic route that for centuries brought millions of captured African slaves to South-America via the tenth parallel.

KYIV - In the course of the moratorium on forest felling in Ukraine, bypassing not only national legislation but also EU regulations and certifications, Ukrainian timber is cut and harvested at such a rate that over four years its exports to the EU countries increased by 75%, exceeding the mark in a ...

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. 

TEHERAN - It is now more than a year since the US unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear agreement with Iran. Since then, the Iranian economy has suffered the stiff sanctions, while unemployment and poverty in the country are rising. Whatever the Americans want to achieve with this, their policy ...

YAOUNDE -  How witchcraft corrodes the African economy and society -  "Under the guise of witchcraft people are tortured, murdered and development money is wasted. But local governments and international aid organisations remain passive," write Alberique Houndjo (Benin), Chief Bison Etahoben ...

FREETOWN - Following BBC's Panorama investigation into secret oil and gas deal corruption between one of City's most controversial businessmen, Frank Timis, and the Senegalese president's brother, Aliou Sall, a team of journalists from Britain and Sierra Leone funded by our Money Trail grant ...

WINDHOEK - The single greatest obstacle that law enforcement officials have in combatting wildlife crime and related smuggling is the lack of a money trail that can be used as evidence in court to secure convictions against the key organisers of such transactions.

ANTWERP - Documents that Apache and Le Vif were able to look into show how Erik Van der Paal - the protegee of N-VA chairman and mayor of Antwerp, Bart De Wever - and his Dutch companion Marc Schaling extracted millions of euros from Land Invest for six years. All this time, the project developer ...

BEIRA - This investigation reveals how a ten million dollar United Nations programme to combat environmental destruction falls apart in Mozambique.

BERLIN - "They described men arriving in Berlin with briefcases full of cash, wanting to buy land, buildings, restaurants". Bernd Finger, former chief investigator of the BKA in Berlin told us regarding statements he received from the Treuhandgesellschaft (the DDR trust company), during the nineties ...

DUSHANBE - In October 2016, the authoritarian president of Tajikistan, Emomali Rachmon, pushed a pile of stones into the river Vachsh with a bulldozer. With this symbolic gesture he gave a new start to the construction of the Rogun dam which started in 1976. With 335 meters, Rogun has to become the ...

BUDAPEST - In our project, we’ve discovered how businessmen related to the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán were buying up media outlets in Slovenia.

NEW YORK -  Banks and vulture funds make money from ordinary people’s distress. The only way to fight back is to outsmart them. Wall Street giants—the so-called ‘vulture funds’—have been on a house-buying spree across Europe and the United States since the 2008 financial crash.

NICOSIA - Thousands of refugees from Africa and the Middle East risk their lives to reach the shores of Europe and escape conflict and repression.  But for the wealthy there are easier options available. With enough money, it's possible to purchase a EU passport - or at least residence. 

VALLETTA - The Mediterranean republic of Malta operates a tax system where companies pay the lowest tax on profits in the EU - only five per cent. Over the last three months, journalistic network European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) dug into over 150,000 documents that show how international ...

VALLETTA - How Russian billionaire and gashion TV investor paid near-zero tax on small loans operations in Europe and the US.

LONDON - Massimo Carminati, boss of an alleged mafia group in Rome, is said to have made millions of euros before his arrest in December 2014. But this financial treasure is nowhere to be found.

BUDAPEST - It’s getting ever harder to gain access to public interest data in Hungary. This is particularly problematic, taking into consideration that reporting on the government’s abuse of power and the endemic corruption is one of the last remaining checks and balances in Hungary.

CATANZARO - The Calabrian mafia ‘Ndrangheta's primary source of money is cocaine. How do they traffic the drug from South America to Europe and Africa leaving virtually no trace?

How did one of Africa's biggest investment companies spend the money they collected from international developments banks for the refurbishment of the Rift Valley Railway?

WINDHOEK - The internal financial structures of the dominant political parties in several African countries, which function as corporatised multinationals within monopolised state power structures: Angola's MPLA, Zimbabwe's ZANU and Namibia's SWAPO.

PALERMO - An investigation into the contemporary Italian mafia in Europe. Or how the mafia made its way to the Low Countries.

MAPUTO - How much of the $850 million budget allocated to Mozambique's public-private company Ematum to buy a fishing fleet was actually spent on military hardware?

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 ...

BUDAPEST -  Dozens of millions of euros were spent on building roads across the Romanian-Hungarian border that lead nowhere.

SOCHI - Seven years under construction at a reported cost of over 40 billion euros, the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia are the most expensive sporting event in history.  But the Games also had a human cost.

MINSK - Since 1994, Belarussian president Lukashenko and his close entourage grabbed an estimated $10 billion from the Belarussian people. This investigation maps the money flows of the Belarussian elite.

ANTWERP - Smuggling, fraud and tax evasion have been the order of the day in the diamond business in Antwerp for decades. The diamond merchants in the 'Square Mile' are living in a vacuum, in a social and judicial bubble that is sustained in part because of the cooperation of politicians and ...