Pavla Holcová

Based in Prague, Pavla Holcová joined OCCRP in 2013 and is a regional editor for Central Europe. She is an investigative journalist and founder of independent outlet and OCCRP member center investigace.cz. She has contributed to major cross-border projects such as the Panama Papers, the Russian and Azerbaijani Laundromats, the Pegasus Project, the Pandora Papers, and the Russian Asset Tracker.

Together with her colleague Ján Kuciak, she exposed ties between the Slovak government and Italian mafia. After Ján was murdered, Pavla helped finish his stories, investigate the murder, and, with her team, unravel one of the European Union’s most jaw-dropping corruption scandals, implicating senior judges and police figures and eventually bringing down a government. The story is told in the OCCRP and Final Cut for Real documentary “The Killing of a Journalist.”

Pavla is the winner of the ICFJ Knight International Journalism Award and, with her colleagues Arpád Soltész and Eva Kubániová, the World Justice Project’s Anthony Lewis Prize Award.