In the run-up to the 2019 Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Hamburg this September 26 to 29, we’re featuring one Global Shining Light Award finalist per day. Check out “The Azerbaijani Laundromat,” by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project in collaboration with numerous international outlets.
Ukraine’s largest bank is taking its battle with its former owners to US shores. In a civil lawsuit filed in the state court of Delaware, PrivatBank accuses Ihor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov, the billionaires who owned the bank before it was nationalized three years ago, of large-scale money laundering in the United States.
Here’s another fascinating look — through a recent US indictment — at the looting of Africa. This one involves alleged fraud tied to $2 billion in loans to state-owned companies in Mozambique, one of the world’s most indebted nations. Among the charges: conspiracy to violate U.S. anti-bribery law and to commit money laundering and securities fraud. Those state-owned firms are now reportedly bankrupt after defaulting on over $700 million in loan payments.
When Clare Rewcastle Brown founded the Sarawak Report in 2010, it was designed to highlight issues affecting indigenous communities in Malaysia, but it soon became instrumental in breaking what the US attorney-general has described as the worst form of kleptocracy in history — the 1MDB scandal involving the plundering of state funds allegedly by Malaysia’s then prime minister and his associates.
An internal report of Danske Bank, the largest financial institution in Denmark, found a series of “major deficiencies in controls and governance” that allowed $235 billion in questionable transactions to be made in its branch in Estonia.
Here’s 76 pages — filed in US federal court today — of excruciating detail on how former Trump presidential campaign chief Paul Manafort laundered millions of dollars from Ukraine and elsewhere between 2006 and 2015, using scores of “corporations, partnerships, and bank accounts” in the US, Grenadines, and UK.
Beyond the moral and social benefits of unveiling corruption and injustice, investigative reporting is actually good business. Need proof? Here’s a pocket-guide to five investigations that have brought millions back into the pockets of the people.
Miranda Patrucic has led numerous cross-border investigations and successfully uncovered intricate money laundering networks, billion-dollar bribes and the murky business dealings of oligarchs in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. She spoke with GIJN on how she does it.
Investigative journalism is dangerous because it exposes those in power. In the past six months, it has taken the lives of two journalists working within the EU’s borders. Forbidden Stories is showing its strength in picking up where the slain journalists left off.
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.
