Supported projects

BRUSSELS - Journalists at KNACK, LeVif and RTBF have joined forces to investigate the peculiar financial management of the non-profit organisation Poverello. They greedily buy real estate that often remains empty. The organisation appears to be very rich, but hardly ever uses its money for working with the poor.

EL ZONTE - El Salvador is the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as its official currency: "One thing is certain: it is here to stay."

LONDON - After the 2008 crash, a few Wall Street investors cracked the code for how to turn cut-price homes into a tradeable asset class worth billions. By 2021, the template they created is being adapted by diverse financial actors, ranging from private equity giants to PropTech apps. 

THE HAGUE - The Netherlands is an important financial centre behind the international arms trade. Research from The Investigative Desk (the Netherlands) and an Indian news outlet shows how some of the biggest arms companies in the world use the Netherlands as an intermediary to wire profits to tax havens. 

AMSTERDAM, BRUSSELS - In February 2021 a Dutch and a Belgian newspaper included a 16 page supplement about the Money Trail project.

The booklet featured four full Money Trail stories, plus a 'Stories behind the Stories' section, which revealed how the journalists went about to do their research and get their stories published.

The oil industry continues to try and expand in Kenya, but there is an urgent need for stricter enforcement and adherence to the rules designed to keep the public and environment safe from the extraction industry’s impacts. The journalists continue to investigate the impact on Kenya from the discovery of oil reserves in the country, as well as the role of key companies and individuals who have profited. 

LILONGWE - Taxation treaties that Malawi signed with other countries over the last fifty years are costing the country hundreds of millions of dollars, since they have opened up opportunities for multinational corporations to reduce their tax liability through tax avoidance.

AMSTERDAM - While the Covid recovery is increasing pressure on public finances and raising the prospect of tax increases, this new research from The Investigative Desk with support from the University of Bath shows, for the first time on this scale, which tax avoidance methods the world’s four largest publicly traded tobacco companies are using to minimise their tax bill. 

HARARE - Gold is Zimbabwe's chief export product. However, partly because of the country's monetary policy, an estimate of 50% of artisanal and small-scale mined gold in Zimbabwe is lost to smuggling, causing bloody turf wars that have claimed hundreds of lives.

NAIROBI - The three legs of this investigation reveal:

1. Kenya's enormous betting addiction;
2. At the same time the Kenyan government removed a tax for betting companies, a cousin of Kenya's president accumulated a financial stake in betting giant SportPesa;
3. SportPesa has been sucking profits out of its lucrative Kenyan business by paying millions of pounds to a software company it owns in the UK.