When people think of whistleblowers they think of Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden or Daniel Ellsberg.

Yet whistleblowers seldom gain fame. Most remain anonymous by choice, content to provide investigative reporters with facts and evidence for crucial stories and then simply fade away.

Whistle (Photo: Zephryis BY CC 3.0)At some level, almost every journalist’s source is a whistleblower. Million-page document dumps are important, but so is disclosure of one page or even just one fact that a government or oligarch doesn’t want you to know.

Seldom acknowledged and almost never thanked, insiders who blow the whistle are the unsung heroes of a just society. Without them, corruption would run rampant, public institutions could evade accountability and the rapacious would go unchecked.

Around the world, journalists investigating the environmental and human impact of the mining industry are facing threats, harassment and violence. OCCRP and Forbidden Stories – a consortium of 40 journalists in 15 countries – takes a look at examples from three continents, in Guatemala, Tanzania, and India.

Bulgaria’s Deputy Minister of Economy resigned Wednesday following the publication of an investigation by OCCRP member center Bivol that suggested he used a guesthouse built with EU money as his own private vacation home.

Citing money-laundering scandals such as the ‘Global Laundromat,’ the ‘Azerbaijani Laundromat’ and the ‘Troika Laundromat’ the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has urged swift and substantial action to strengthen anti-money laundering provisions and improve international cooperation in the fight against such ‘laundromats.’

A prominent Venezuelan journalist who had been reporting on the country’s political crisis was released from detention by authorities late Tuesday after spending over 24 hours in lockup.

Slovakian police arrested Thursday eight people in connection with the brutal murder of a local journalist who was shot dead at close range in his home in February while investigating the infiltration of the Italian mob into his home country.

Unknown attackers shot an investigative reporter in the leg on Tuesday night in Podgorica, prompting an outcry by Montenegrin and international authorities for the perpetrators to be found and journalists to be protected.

In late February 2018, Jan Kuciak, a young Slovak investigative journalist, was murdered by a single bullet. His fiancée was killed alongside him.

Lawyers for Afgan Mukhtarli, the Azerbaijan journalist who disappeared from Tbilisi and was next seen two days later in a Baku prison, asked a judge on Thursday to further question a witness of what Mukhtarli claims was his abduction.

Reporters who filed complaints against the European Parliament for not revealing how its members were spending their allowances were baffled by the arguments of the defense at last week’s court hearing, one of the plaintiffs told OCCRP Tuesday.

A special report published Wednesday urges the Ukrainian government to step up its commitment to investigating the July 2016 murder of Pavel Sheremet, a prominent investigative reporter who was killed in Kiev by an improvised explosive device planted under his car.

The OCCRP is partnering up with the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga) Center for Media Studies to present the Journalism for Future Challenges program again this year. 

We are looking for early career journalists from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, or Ukraine who are looking to expand their investigative reporting skills, with a focus on organized crime and corruption, as well as to expand their professional network.

The Panama Papers project led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and Süddeutsche Zeitung, of which the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) was a partner, won two categories of the 2016 Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) Award.  OCCRP and Serbian partner Crime and Corruption Reporting Network (KRIK) were also named finalists of the 2016 Tom Renner Award.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), one of the world’s largest investigative reporting organizations, is bringing its cross-border reporting expertise into Africa. The move comes as part of the Global Anti-Corruption Consortium, a new partnership with Transparency International (TI), which will see OCCRP launch new investigative projects worldwide.

(Photo: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain)

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and Transparency International (TI) are joining forces in a first of its kind partnership to root out grand corruption on a global scale, the Global Anti-Corruption Consortium.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a non-profit network of investigative journalism centers in Europe and Eurasia, has launched a new data platform to enable journalists and researchers to sift more than 2 million documents and use the findings in their investigations.

The OCCRP is partnering up with the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga) Center for Media Studies to present the Journalism for Future Challenges program again this year.

The Panama Papers are provoking a tsunami of reaction on social media and on headlines across the globe. The impact ranges from debates among readers, to officials at the center of stories, to governments, prosecutors and law enforcement authorities.

Turkey’s main opposition party leader, Sezgin Tanrıkulu of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) rebuked President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government for the treatment of journalists, reported Turkish daily news site Hurriyet.

Romanian Senator Gabriel Oprea has been involved in questionable real estate deals, according to a story published by OCCRP partner RISE Romania in partnership with the Center for Investigative Media.