The panel will review nominations made by the public and journalists and select the global figure who has earned the title based on their own corrupt behavior or their contribution to organized crime and corruption anywhere in the world.
Nominations are now open and will be accepted until Dec. 9. The award will be announced on Dec. 27. Email your nominations to OCCRP Coordinating Editor Chelsea J. Carter at chelsea@occrp.org. Please include the full name of your nominee and one to three paragraphs, with supporting links, explaining why they should be recognized as OCCRP's Person of the Year.
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project is a non-profit media organization that provides an investigative reporting platform for a network of 45 non-profit investigative centers in 34 countries, scores of journalists and several major regional news organizations across Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.
Since 2012, OCCRP has accepted nominations from the public and journalists and chosen from them the individual (or organization) who has done the most in the world to advance transnational criminal activity and the political collusion that goes along with it. Previous winners include Danske Bank, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev.
The judges this year are:
Ying Chan
Writer, professor, and founding director of The University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Center. She is a former Nieman Fellow and George Polk Award winner. She has edited six books on the Chinese media.
Saska Cvetkovska
Editor-in-chief of the Investigative Reporting Lab in Macedonia and a member of OCCRP’s board of directors.
Rawan Damen
Journalist, filmmaker and media consultant. She is the executive director of the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, and a former senior commissioner at the Al Jazeera Media Network.
Paul Radu
Award-winning cross-border investigative reporter, co-founder and director of OCCRP. He is also co-founder of RISE Project, a platform for investigative reporters in Romania.
Maria Teresa Ronderos
An investigative journalist from Colombia and a board member of the Committee to Protect Journalists. She is the former director of Open Society Foundation’s program on independent journalism and founder of the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP, its acronym in Spanish), a cross-border investigative reporting center.
Louise Shelley
Author and endowed professor at the Schar School of Policy and International Affairs at George Mason University. She is the founder and executive director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TracCCC).
Drew Sullivan
Investigative journalist and media development specialist. He is the founder of the Center for Investigative Reporting in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the co-founder and editor of OCCRP.
Hennie Van Vuuren
Anti-corruption activist, writer and researcher. He is director of Open Secrets, a non-profit based in Cape Town, South Africa, that advocates for accountability for economic crimes and human rights violations. He is the author of “Apartheid Guns and Money: A Tale of Profit.”
