With the end of the Cold War, intelligence agencies brainstormed about what the next great security threat would be. It turned out they didn’t have to look far: the global advent of kleptocracies and criminal states now threatens democracy and accountable government almost everywhere. Kleptocracies — government by theft — now dominate in much of […]
In concert with GIJC21’s panel on the “New Organized Crime,” GIJN has released a comprehensive, multi-part reporting guide to investigating organized crime around the world, looking at nine key areas: criminal finance, narcotics, arms trade, environmental crime, forced disappearances, cybercrime, mafia states, human trafficking, and art and antiquities.
GIJN’s forthcoming guide to investigating organized crime features a chapter on what we call mafia states – countries that essentially operate as a criminal cartel and run the affairs of state much as a crime syndicate runs rackets. To explore this topic, we asked GIJN’s executive director David Kaplan to interview Drew Sullivan, co-founder and editor of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
In this excerpt from his new book on protecting democracy, Larry Diamond, founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy, outlines 10 steps to combat kleptocracy around the world. Among them is the need to end the use of anonymous shell companies and “increase international support for investigative journalism.”
Following a seismic year for accountability journalism in 2020, GIJN asked prominent investigative journalists around the world to share topics that their teams will be looking at in 2021. Feedback from editors in 14 countries indicates an unusual amount of subject overlap for watchdog reporters this year, centered around vaccines, technology, and autocracy.
Show me the money! Experts from around the world shared their tips about how to track looted wealth at the 2017 Global Investigative Journalism Conference.
