The major project builds on OCCRP's ongoing "People of Interest" initiative, whose aim is to provide a free-of-charge tool for anyone wanting access to information on organized crime figures that is otherwise difficult to obtain.
It includes data on judiciary files, properties, businesses and the personal relationships of more than 300 of the most important names linked to organized crime in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salavador and Costa Rica.
In the past year, ten journalists have dedicated themselves to gathering the data by scouring public documents, police records, confidential reports and intelligence papers. Now, journalists, authorities and civilians can access the hundreds of documents that make up the profiles, which will be maintained and updated by journalists.
The platform has already been used by the Guatemalan daily Periódico, which located court records and published a story that included parts of the testimony of drug kingpin Waldemar Lorenzana Lima.
Lorenzana confessed involvement in a major drug trafficking cartel which sent thousands of kilos of cocaine from Colombia to the US under the protection of the Guatemalan army as well as police and government officials.
The project was a cooperation between media including OCCRP, El Universal (Mexico) and El Periódico (Guatemala), as well as the journalism platform Connectas, based in Colombia, which develops regional journalism projects.
The team plans to roll out the programme in the coming months to other countries in the Americas. The site can be accessed at https://www.personadeinteres.org/
