On the fifth anniversary of the Panama Papers, ICIJ's member from Iceland takes us behind the scenes of the investigation that brought down the country's leader, and shares insights on covering stories that come from the heart.

Meet the Investigators: Johannes Kr. Kristjansson

How do you report on a regime that has built an "iron wall" around itself, and that controls all sources of information? ICIJ's member from Cuba, Barbara Maseda, shares some of the innovative methods journalists both on and off the island must use to access data and report their stories.

Meet the Investigators: Barbara Maseda

ICIJ member Marian Wilkinson is a firm believer in investigative journalism as a tool to hold the world's most powerful people accountable - and she has spent four decades in Australia doing just that. In this month's Meet the Investigators, Marian talks with ICIJ about going the extra mile on her stories, the importance of finding structure in documents, and more.

Meet the Investigators: Marian Wilkinson

This month, Slovenian reporter Anuška Delic takes us for a wild ride through her investigative career, from exposing a political party’s neo-Nazi connections, to pushing for spending transparency in European parliament, to starting her own media outlet that would live up to her elevated editorial standards. Delic is a firm believer in the value of reporters doing rigorous independent research and doubting everyone — including themselves — to make sure they’re asking the right questions and getting the right answers.

Meet the Investigators: Anuska Delic

This month we're bringing you a recording of a special live edition of our Meet the Investigators podcast. ICIJ reporter Scilla Alecci interviewed Chilean reporter and journalism innovator Francisca Skoknic in a live, online event open exclusively to ICIJ's donors (who also had a chance to ask Francisca their own questions). In the interview, Francisca shares stories from early in her career, like digging through documents to uncover the secret offshore account linked to infamous dictator Pinochet, and also takes us through the creation of her latest project, an automated news messenger robot called LaBot that guides users through big news stories.

Meet the Investigators: Francisca Skoknic

One year since Moussa Aksar's FinCEN Files investigation into a military procurement scandal made headlines in Niger, ICIJ's Will Fitzgibbon updates us on the legal intimidation and harassment that has been leveled at Moussa ever since. This month's Meet the Investigators also takes us behind the scenes of Moussa's career as a respected investigative journalist and the regular challenges he faces as a reporter in a country where democracy is still "under construction."

Meet the Investigators: Moussa Aksar

The Pandora Papers is ICIJ's biggest investigation to date, working with more journalists than ever to uncover the offshore financial secrets of the world's rich and powerful. In this month's Meet the Investigators, we talk to ICIJ team members Brenda Medina, Asraa Mustufa and Agustin Armendariz about what it was like behind the scenes of the investigation, and how the groundbreaking project came together.

Meet the Investigators: Pandora Papers

ICIJ member Malek Khadhraoui founded the Tunisian news site Inkyfada in 2013 as an independent investigative outlet with a unique business model. Since then, powered by an in-house design and development studio, Malek and his team have collaborated on seven ICIJ investigations, including the recent Pandora Papers. In this month's Meet the Investigators, Malek shares his story about his start in journalism and his insights from building a trilingual, mission-driven media organization.

Meet the Investigators: Malek Khadraoui

Maria Teresa Ronderos is a Colombian journalist, director and co-founder of the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP).

Meet the Investigators: Maria Teresa Ronderos

In this month's episode, we speak with Namini Wijedasa, deputy editor of investigations at The Sunday Times in Sri Lanka. In her nearly 30-year-long career, Namini has covered a wide range of issues, from war to corruption. Sri Lanka routinely ranks low in global press freedom rankings and Namini has faced many threats to expose the truth and hold powerful people to account.

Meet the Investigators: Namini Wijedasa

In this episode of our Meet the Investigators podcast, we speak with Roman Anin, a Russian reporter who founded and runs IStories — short for “Important Stories” — a nonprofit news outlet focused on publishing investigative journalism. Anin has been labeled a “foreign agent” and the head of an “undesirable organization” by Russian authorities for his dogged reporting critical of President Vladimir Putin and his allies. He spoke with ICIJ's Nicole Sadek about his journey to investigative journalism, the dangers of working as a reporter in Russia, and the challenge of holding Russia's most powerful people accountable in the face of constant pressure, harassment and legal threats.

Meet the Investigators: Roman Anin

In this month's Meet the Investigators, we spoke with Irish Times reporter Colm Keena, who’s been covering business and political corruption for decades. Keena has been a member of ICIJ since 2014, and most recently worked with ICIJ just last month on a story about one of Ireland’s most notorious crime gangs.

Meet the Investigators: Colm Keena

In this special edition of our podcast, ICIJ Chief Reporter Sydney P. Freedberg and ICIJ media partner Damien Leloup from Le Monde talk about the revelations and impact of the Uber Files, ICIJ’s latest investigation into the ride-hailing giant’s massive lobbying campaign during its early international expansion. The Uber Files expose how, between 2013 and 2017, Uber brazenly entered countries in defiance of local laws, thwarted investigations and upended workers rights in an effort to dominate the ride-hailing market.

Meet The Investigators: The Uber Files Special

For the August edition of ICIJ's Meet the Investigators podcast, we speak with Golden Matonga, a Malawian reporter who is the investigations director at the Platform for Investigative Journalism in Malawi, and who’s written for various outlets, including Nation Publications Limited, the Telegraph and the Financial Times. Matonga has covered everything from an international criminal to a botched presidential election. As a member of ICIJ since 2021, he’s worked on the FinCEN Files and Pandora Papers.

Meet the Investigators: Golden Matonga

In this episode of Meet the Investigators, we speak with Alberto Arellano, the investigations director at Diego Portales University in Chile, about his early foray into journalism, the story that prompted the impeachment of Chile’s former president, his upcoming book and more. Arellano worked as a reporter and editor for CIPER, a center for investigative journalism in Chile, and partnered with ICIJ on the Panama, Paradise and Pandora Papers.

Meet the Investigators: Alberto Arellano

October marks the one-year anniversary of the largest journalism collaboration in history: the Pandora Papers. In the last 12 months, the Pandora Papers has contributed to the downfall of governments, renewed calls for corporate transparency and official investigations into the offshore wealth of world leaders. This month we spoke to Pavla Holcová, a Czech reporter whose work in the Pandora Papers led to the surprise defeat of former Czech Republic Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, just days after she and colleagues published a story into Babiš secret real estate holdings. Pavla is the founder of Investigace, a Czech center for investigative reporting, a regional editor for the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and an ICIJ member since 2020. She was the 2021 winner of the ICFJ Knight International Journalism Award and is currently nominated for the prestigious Allard Prize, which will be announced on Oct. 19.

Meet the Investigators: Pavla Holcova

On the heels of Brazil’s major election, ICIJ member Guilherme Amado joins us to discuss how outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro’s government put democracy in the balance, the struggles that President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will face beginning in January and how he’s coping with news overload. Amado is a news columnist for the website Metropoles and a director of Abraji, the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism. Earlier this year, he published a book on the ways Bolsonaro’s government dealt with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Meet the Investigators: Guilherme Amado

In our final episode of 2022, ICIJ senior reporter Will Fitzgibbon, ProPublica investigative reporter Debbie Cenziper and Daraj Media managing editor and co-founder Diana Moukalled break down their latest project, Shadow Diplomats, an investigation into an underreported group of diplomats known as honorary consuls. Their investigation reveals more than 500 honorary consuls who engaged in criminal or controversial activities, and in some cases, used their diplomatic statuses to do so.

Meet the Investigators: Behind the scenes of the Shadow Diplomats

For our first Meet the Investigators episode of the year, we spoke with Boyoung Lim, a police officer-turned-reporter who worked on some of the biggest investigations for KCIJ - Newstapa, an investigative news outlet in South Korea. Today, Lim is a senior editor at the Pulitzer Center, where she coordinates the Artificial Intelligence Accountability Network.

Meet the Investigators: Boyoung Lim

This special edition of ICIJ's Meet the Investigators podcast is a recording of a live panel event, taking you behind the scenes of the Deforestation Inc. investigation. 

Listen in as the reporters who tramped through ravaged forests, tracked timber shipments around the world, and pored over leaked files share their stories on a broken system that's failing to protect the planet's valuable forestlands.

Meet the Investigators: Behind the scenes of Deforestation Inc.

For this month’s Meet the Investigators, ICIJ member Omaya Sosa Pascual shares what it was like to cover the aftermath of Hurricane Maria on her home island of Puerto Rico — and how, against the odds, her team was able to hold their government accountable by accurately sharing the true scale of death and devastation wrought by the storm. Omaya also shares more stories from her incredible career, from setting up her own nonprofit newsroom to developing a network of Caribbean reporters dedicated to supporting each other's work.

Meet the Investigators: Omaya Sosa Pascual

Just a few tiny tweaks! For this month’s Meet the Investigators, we hear from one of ICIJ's newest members: Hayatte Abdou. The first and only member from Comoros, a small island state off the coast of East Africa, Hayatte has spearheaded courageous stories — from investigating a colleague’s death, to revealing widespread corruption in the country's tax authority. At their core, her stories are about holding people in power accountable, in a country where journalism careers are precarious and corruption — and intimidation — runs rampant.

Meet the Investigators: Hayatte Abdou

For more than a year, ICIJ's Trafficking Inc. collaboration has worked to unravel the webs of human trafficking across the globe. In this month’s Meet the Investigators, we’ve invited a panel of three journalists to share the unique challenges of exposing these networks, and what it takes to coordinate dozens of journalists and over three hundred interviews with workers across Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Meet the Investigators: Behind the scenes of Trafficking Inc.

A year ago, ICIJ's Uber Files sparked protests and government inquiries across the globe, after a cache of company documents revealed the company's ruthless approach to expansion.

This month, The Guardian's investigations editor Paul Lewis walks us through the early days of the project: from covert meetings with a whistleblower on Lake Geneva, to what became a global collaboration of partners from nearly 30 countries.

For more, read:
- https://www.icij.org/investigations/uber-files/french-uber-files-inquiry-criticizes-macrons-secret-dealings-with-ride-hailing-giant/ 
- https://www.icij.org/investigations/uber-files/uber-global-rise-lobbying-violence-technology/
- https://www.icij.org/investigations/uber-files/uber-lobbyist-whistleblower-mark-macgann/

Meet the Investigators: Behind the Uber Files with Paul Lewis

Over the past few months, a scandal of international proportions has rocked the Australian consulting arm of PwC. 

ICIJ member Neil Chenoweth first broke the story in The Australian Financial Review: While the accounting giant profited off a lucrative contract advising the Australian government on new tax laws, some of its senior partners used that confidential information to court multinational companies seeking to sidestep those same laws.

This month, Neil Chenoweth sat down with us for a deep dive into his reporting, what he found and what those revelations tell us about the role consulting firms play in government work.

For more on the scandal, read/listen:
- https://www.icij.org/investigations/luxembourg-leaks/accounting-giant-pwc-is-in-crisis-mode-amid-a-growing-australian-tax-leak-scandal/
- https://www.icij.org/investigations/luxembourg-leaks/us-tech-giants-restructured-to-sidestep-australian-tax-law-following-pwc-advice/
- https://omny.fm/shows/the-fin/why-the-pwc-scandal-now-has-a-second-wind?in_playlist=podcast

Meet the Investigators: Neil Chenoweth

In honor of World Press Freedom Day in 2020 we’re trying something new.  We want to connect you with the reporters we work with every day. 

These brave journalists defeat the odds to expose corruption and collect facts that are often hidden from the public.

Hear stories from Namini Wijedasa (Sri lanka), Jacob Borg (Malta), Jimmy Alvarado (El Salvador), Diana Moukalled, and Ignace Sossou (Benin).

Read more about our global network of investigative reporters: https://www.icij.org/blog/2020/05/hostile-leaders-and-hidden-data-press-freedom-challenges-in-2020

Meet the Investigators: World Press Freedom Day 2020

To tell the world’s most important stories, ICIJ collaborates with the best investigative journalists from across the globe.  Every month, we give you a chance to get to know them. You’ll hear firsthand what it's like to pursue the truth and uncover hidden facts in every corner of the globe.

This month we kick our series off with a journalist who has a special place in ICIJ’s heart: Maud Beelman.

Send your feedback to social@icij.org

Meet the Investigators: Maud Beelman

Our Luxembourg member Luc Caregari talks about life as an investigative reporter in a population of only 626,000. 

Caregari shares his investigation into Airbnb and how access to documents in Luxembourg can be kept for 100 years from reporters.

The episode was produced by Amy Wilson-Chapman, Will Fitzgibbon, Carmen Molina Acosta and Scilla Alecci.

Meet the Investigators: Luc Caregari

ICIJ member, and investigative journalist, Aidila Razak explains how her team re-told a critical moment in their nation’s past that sparked conversations between generations.

We speak with her for #MeetTheInvesitgators in August 2020.

Investigating Malaysia’s history, to understand the present

ICIJ member and Panamanian investigative journalism Mary Triny Zea talks about her dogged journalism that resulted in protests and investigations in this month's ‘Meet the Investigators' podcast.

‘Ethics above all’: Mary Triny Zea on reporting in Panama that sparked change.

In this special edition of our Meet the Investigators podcast, we take you behind the scenes of our latest investigation, the FinCEN Files.

Journalists Karrie Kehoe, Ben Hallman and Spencer Woodman spent more than a year going through the secret documents at the heart of the investigation, uncovering stories of corruption, crime and fraud.

Meet The Investigators: FinCEN Files Special

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) is a nonprofit investigative news organization. We work with reporters and news organizations from more than 90 countries to report on the world's most important stories.

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