In this edition of GIJN Toolbox, we profile three brand new — or newly expanded — tools to dig into financial secrecy and hidden gains from corruption or crime. Our list includes a user-friendly database to search for sanctions and conflict-of-interest red flags, a site that uses an algorithm to detect hidden bank accounts, and a newly expanded database on the true owners of offshore companies.
In a scandal known as ‘Vacunagate,’ 487 influential people in Peru, including its president, were secretly inoculated against COVID-19 months before vaccines were approved for the public. Two investigative newsrooms in Peru found that Chinese drug makers had secretly sent thousands of ‘courtesy’ vaccine doses to several countries in South America in addition to the doses needed for clinical trials there. Editors from both told GIJN how reporters can tackle this new form of corruption.
For our series about journalists’ favorite tools, we spoke with AP’s Martha Mendoza, who has won Pulitzer prizes for her investigations on slavery in the fishing industry, and on a civilian massacre during the Korean War. She described some of the tools and methods she uses to investigate supply chains, including those that have led to shortages in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
