2024-12-20 16:00:34
Choosing the top investigative stories from sub-Saharan Africa to feature in GIJN’s annual editors’ picks project is getting more challenging — and not because there is a shortage of watchdog journalism content to pick from. On the contrary, the options from across the continent are growing more abundant and diverse.
This is because many African investigative journalists are increasingly prolific with their output, daring in the pursuit of facts, collaborative across borders and reporting beats, innovative in their storytelling, and persistent in holding those in power to account until they achieve some discernible impact.
Since May 2020, GIJN has systematically kept track of investigative stories produced across Africa and curated, each month in our Africa newsletter, the stories that we believe represent some of the best watchdog journalism on the continent. It is from those stories — along with others that make it to our bi-monthly global newsletter — that we make our annual editor’s picks.
This year, 50 stories from across English-speaking sub-Saharan Africa made it into our Africa newsletter, while 21 stories from Africa and/or about issues on the continent were selected to feature in GIJN’s global newsletter. Only eight of those stories will be part of our Africa editor’s picks.
However, some of the stories on our monthly lists have already been recognized at national, regional, or continental levels over the course of the year. This is a testament to their high quality, which saw both GIJN and the judges of the respective awards they won identify them as the best of the several stories done during the course of the year or the respective award periods. These award-winning stories include:
Because those stories have already received public acclaim, we opted not to include them in our Africa editor’s picks. That decision then paves the way for us to shine our spotlight on other equally impressive investigative reports that have not yet been celebrated. Below are the stories we identified as representing some of the best investigative journalism efforts from sub-Saharan Africa in 2024.
Image: Screenshot, YouTube, Africa Uncensored
In a two-part documentary produced by a Cynthia Gichiri-led investigative team, Africa Uncensored went undercover to document how unscrupulous businesses cleverly packaged ordinary sand and sold it to unsuspecting farmers as organic fertilizers. To corroborate their evidence from the undercover investigation, Africa Uncensored conducted laboratory tests on the counterfeit fertilizers being sold as a part of the subsidy program.
After the story broke, it had a domino effect. The executive branch of Kenya’s government initiated a probe into the scam, while the Senate started its own parallel investigation. The government carried out its own independent tests and conceded that farmers had been supplied fake fertilizer. Eventually, the owners of the companies behind the scam were arrested and charged in court, along with senior officials from the National Cereals and Produce Board.
However, after a disagreement among members of the committee investigating the matter, some legislators were accused of taking bribes to save his neck. The impasse over the fertilizer scandal was one of the factors that fuelled nationwide protests, which nearly led to the collapse of President Ruto’s government.
The Fourth Estate’s investigation found that scholarships meant for underprivileged Ghanaian students were used by high-profile families and wealthy individuals to attend colleges abroad in the UK and US, like Harvard University. Image: Shutterstock
In early April 2024, The Fourth Estate, a nonprofit, public interest and accountability investigative journalism project of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), revealed that politically connected individuals had been keeping for themselves, their relatives, and close associates several international scholarships meant for the poor.
Acting on a tip in a report released by Ghana’s Auditor General, the publication made a Right to Information (RTI) request to the Ghana Scholarships Secretariat (GSS). The released information, along with analysis from The Fourth Estate, indicated that family members of politicians and social highflyers in Ghana had taken the scholarships. The Fourth Estate also found that some of these high-profile individuals even received multiple scholarships, while some beneficiaries received funding to study courses abroad that were available in Ghanaian universities.
Image: Screenshot, ICIJ
In a digital era where organized crime often has multinational tentacles, this cross-border story by the International Consortium for Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) best illustrates what is possible when reporters and editors put their heads together to solve journalistic puzzles and expose crime that stretches beyond a particular country’s or region’s borders.
Led by the International Consortium for Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a team of 38 journalists spread across 11 countries dug into a leak of more than 890,000 internal records from the Eswatini Financial Intelligence Unit — the largest of its kind from a financial intelligence unit in an African country — to develop a series of investigative pieces.
Among other discoveries, the reporters found that the weak, anti-money laundering controls in the small kingdom of Eswatini, the last absolute monarchy in Africa, made it easy to move illicit finances and smuggle gold.
According to project partner Finance Uncovered, the investigation also revealed “for the first time the inner workings of an African anti-money laundering unit as it pursued investigations into a wide range of suspicious activity,” as well as the political interference they had to contend with, including from the King’s inner circle.
The embarrassing revelations angered Eswatini’s ruling party, who demanded an investigation — but not into the apparent financial misconduct. Instead, the government sought to uncover the identity of the whistleblower and how the internal government records ended up with Distributed Denial of Secrets, the US-based group that passed the leaked information to the ICIJ.
TV news images of the collapse of one of the synagogue buildings run by the Nigerian preacher, which killed 116 people. Image: YouTube, BBC
In a three-part investigative series, with findings drawn from three continents, BBC Africa Eye uses detailed, first-person testimonies of close victims and allies and historical footage to expose the controlling conduct and atrocities committed by a hugely popular and globally recognized Nigerian preacher whose influence gave him personal access to presidents, kings, and some of the world’s wealthiest people.
The two-year investigation uncovered instances of alleged abuse and violence, claims of fake miracles that nevertheless drew millions of people to his congregation, allegations of bribery, and intimidation of victims’ families to cover up his role in the 2014 collapse of his church that killed 116 people.
The church, which is now run by his widow, released a statement describing the BBC Africa Eye report as unfounded and claimed that the people interviewed in the documentary were unknown to the church. Nevertheless, not long after the BBC’s story YouTube banned the church’s official channel from its platform “for violating its hate speech policies,” while MultiChoice, Africa’s largest pay TV provider, similarly stopped broadcasting the religious channel.
Image: Shutterstock
This story, by Congolese journalist Françoise Mbuyi Mutombo for the Global Press Journal, breaks down a complex public health issue with compelling storytelling supported by old-school reporting methods such as interviews, documents, and observation.
The investigation opens with the case of Marie Bolisawu, a patient at a small private clinic in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Tshopo Province, who expected to be diagnosed with malaria but was told she had a thyroid problem. She is not alone. According to an analysis by the Tshopo Provincial Health Division, 65% of patients tested between 2020 and 2023 at private laboratories in the province were misdiagnosed. Division health inspector Jérôme Bolima explains the reason for this high rate: 60% of the private medical laboratories operating in Tshopo province illegally employ unqualified staff, who provide inaccurate test results.
Mutombo approached nine owners and managers of private health centers with poor diagnostic reputations. Five refused to speak about the matter and four denied the accusations. Through interviews with local residents, health professionals, and rights activists, Mutombo develops an investigative diagnosis of how private medical laboratories circumvent established professional standards for health facilities.
Image: Screenshot, YouTube, AIIJ
On November 16, Ugandan authorities seized opposition politician and four-time presidential candidate Kizza Besigye in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, and drove him back to Kampala, where he was subsequently charged in a military court with possession of guns and plotting to overthrow the government, and remanded until January 7, 2025.
This was not Besigye’s first arrest. And, according to this African Institute for Investigative Journalism (AIIJ), documentary, similar abductions are “becoming normal” in Uganda. Rights organizations cite reports of so-called “drone” vans arresting opposition figures, civil society activists, and government critics and allegedly detaining and even torturing them. To investigate the abduction and torture of ordinary citizens, AIIJ interviewed informers, counter-intelligence officers, “hitmen,” and mercenaries in various agencies and units who have carried out arrests and kidnaps, explaining the “how, why, and where.” The reporting provides insight into the perpetrators’ mindset and motivations, and through first-hand accounts from victims and their families also shows the devastating long-term impact of kidnapping and torture.
In a sit-down interview with AIIJ, Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) spokesperson, Brigadier General Felix Kulayigye, denied allegations that the army operates “dungeons” and questioned a victim’s claim of being tortured at the hands of military intelligence.
In May 2024, AIIJ also released a documentary on Ugandan police attacks against journalists.
A PIJ analysis of the US charity’s credit card accounts found numerous examples where the nonprofit’s donated funds were used for personal expenditures, including travel and domestic expenses. Image: Screenshot, Platform for Investigative Journalism – Malawi
This collaborative investigation, by the Platform for Investigative Journalism Malawi (PIJ) with support from southern Africa’s IJ Hub and OpenUP/Africa Data Hub, looked into a Christian charity registered in the US state of Arkansas and Malawi. The American couple behind it had been running an inter-country adoption agency and an orphanage, and, through their organization, allegedly solicited funds from US citizens they claimed would go to feed orphaned and malnourished children in Malawi.
Through Access to Information requests, PIJ obtained financial and tax documents that indicated the charity filed very different tax returns in the US and Malawi, used the charity’s debit cards for personal expenses, and spent money from donations on a luxurious lifestyle, which included chartering a sightseeing helicopter tour. The story was picked up by an Arkansas-based NBC affiliate and The Wall Street Journal, and according to an international law resource the US Diplomatic Security Services — an arm of the State Department — launched an investigation into fraud allegations in June 2024.
Image: Screenshot, amaBhungane
AmaBhungane’s multi-part series traces the vast web of international money laundering networks (“the organized crime enabling all other organized crime”) originating in South Africa, where legitimate businesses and “outright crooks” alike exploit legal “gray zones” and operate in a thriving illicit financial sector, despite the country having one of the continent’s best-regulated banking systems. The illicit financial networks extend to Dubai, Hong Kong, and other financial capitals. One of the investigation’s main goals, amaBhungane writes, is to “pierce” the secrecy that enables this activity.
Part one reveals how a new set of money laundering actors use illicit gold trade to scam tax authorities; part two traces the inner workings of a Johannesburg cash-in-transit company operating as a “shadow bank” to move millions of dollars for clients over the years; part three identifies some of the state-affiliated actors who have moved dirty cash out of South Africa through the “shadow bank;” part four reveals how Eswatini became a transit hub for southern Africa’s money laundering networks; part five looks into the government contractors who have used existing money laundering infrastructure to move vast sums of their money offshore.
AmaBhungane has yet to conclude this investigation — look out for additional reports towards the end of December 2024 or early next year.
Benon Herbert Oluka, GIJN’s Africa editor, is a Ugandan multimedia journalist. Benon is a mentor for the 2023/2024 African Union Media Fellowship cohort. His work has been recognized three times on the African continent as the winner of the 2008 Akintola Fatoyinbo Africa Education Journalism Award (First Prize, English category), the 2011 CNN-MultiChoice African Journalist of the Year Award (Tourism category) and the Thomson Reuters’ 2011 Niall FitzGerald Prize for Young African Journalists.
2024-12-20 08:07:51
2024-12-19 18:58:14
This is a full time position with the nonprofit Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN). Applicants must have a solid understanding of investigative and data journalism, and strong skills in managing social media.
GIJN is an association of 251 member organizations in 95 countries dedicated to spreading and advancing investigative journalism around the world. This position is aimed at strengthening and building networks and organizations of investigative journalists in the Bangla-speaking world. This position reports to the global team manager.
Applicants must have a solid understanding of investigative and data journalism, as well as experience and skill with social media. GIJN is a distributed nonprofit, and this is a remote position.
GIJN is staffed by an extraordinary multicultural team based in over 20 countries. You’ll work in a collaborative network that is having an impact every day on the front lines of journalism.
Work duties:
Requirements:
Location: Bangladesh is preferred, but also open to candidates anywhere in the world who speak and write in Bangla. GIJN is a virtual nonprofit. You’ll need good, dependable broadband.
2024-12-19 16:00:24
Investigative journalism in Turkey faces many challenges and obstacles, with legal and economic pressures making it increasingly difficult for reporters working in this field to do their jobs.
Press freedom has seriously declined in recent years, and journalists can face various charges for revealing information that could harm the interests of the state or powerful economic groups. Incidents such as the arrests of journalists on charges related to anti-terror laws, insult, and slander, alongside widespread censorship have become symbols of an increasingly hostile reporting environment. A number of reporters have had to move overseas as a result of this increasingly complex climate.
The consolidation of media ownership is another factor that makes independent journalism difficult — and Reporters Without Borders estimates that 90% of the national media is now under government control. Many media organizations avoid certain topics due to economic interests and political connections — with close relations between large media groups and the government hindering investigative journalism.
Despite all these difficulties, watchdog reporters and some of the remaining independent media organizations in Turkey are undertaking remarkable work. Especially in recent years, many investigations and documents have been disclosed on critical issues such as corruption, environmental disasters, and human rights violations.
Independent publications such as Kısa Dalga, Artı Gerçek, Fayn, Evrensel, Birgün, Medyascope, and Ortak remain notable examples, with reporters determined to bring to light information that remains in the dark. Social media also maintains its place as an important tool: experienced journalists forced out of mainstream outlets are creating YouTube channels to continue their work.
This year, the stories featured on our best-of list include an investigation into how a gang allegedly became implicated in the deaths of newborn babies, a deep dive into nickel mining, and an exposé on plastic garbage waste pouring into Turkey.
We cannot thank enough all the journalists who work to create quality journalism in a media environment in which it is very difficult for them to operate.
Image: Screenshot
This story begins when a mother receives the devastating news that her baby, who was born healthy, had died of an infection after having been transferred to an intensive care unit at a private hospital. Her subsequent complaint launched a wider investigation into the deaths of newborns in similar situations, which led to a nationwide scandal involving a gang accused of having put profits ahead of infants’ treatment.
Investigators looking into the case say they found a criminal network — dubbed the “Newborn Gang” — members of whom stand accused of sending children to private facilities to earn referral and treatment fees, even when the care those children received was substandard.
Although countless journalists covered the story, one particular investigation by Fayn, an independent digital news and multimedia storytelling studio, was meticulously produced. The team uncovered documents, spoke to experts, obtained statements from families of the victims, and used freedom-of-information requests to unveil the network.
While the criminal investigation is ongoing, 10 of the 19 private hospitals in the indictment have been closed down. Dozens of people — including a number of medics and nurses — face charges including negligent homicide, fraud, and forgery. (According to an Associated Press report, the medical workers say they made the best possible decisions while caring for the most delicate patients imaginable, and now face criminal penalties for unavoidable outcomes.)
From e-bikes to electric car batteries, nickel is a semi-precious metal that is a key natural resource for the green energy revolution. But according to this investigation from the team at Black Sea, an outlet that specializes in narrative-driven investigations on Turkey and southeast Europe, mining for the metal is destroying centuries-old forests and impacting a watershed in western Turkey.
Reporters traveled to the small village of Kalemoğlu to explore what happens to a local community when nickel is extracted from the soil. They found locals worried about polluted drinking water, a livestock industry that has lost pastures, plus concerns about activities that some fear can seriously threaten public health. This includes land contaminated with heavy metals and high levels of arsenic and sulphur, to “toxic spills that have irreversibly damaged the local ecosystem.”
The Black Sea team conducted a series of interviews with residents, scientists, farmers, activists, and politicians, examining the region’s mining activities in detail with drone footage. While the impacts are being felt acutely on a local scale, they pointed out, mining operations themselves are usually carried out for international companies.
Image: Screenshot., BBC Turkish
One of the buildings that collapsed after the massive 2023 earthquake in Turkey was known as the Ezgi Apartment. Some 35 people lost their lives when the building crumbled, even though the surrounding buildings remained intact and the site was some distance from the areas where the worst of the destruction occurred.
Nurgül Göksu lost her son, daughter-in-law, and six-month-old granddaughter in the Ezgi disaster. Her campaign for justice began the day she reached the site, where she started to collect evidence from the debris. Later, she worked with civil engineers and lawyers to make her voice heard, before turning to the BBC Turkish investigation team for help.
Together, they examined an expert report and indictment prepared by the prosecutor’s office and spoke to witnesses and experts to understand the remodeling changes the building had gone through before the collapse. Throughout the investigation, they documented missing surveys and paperwork, and found evidence that some materials and even some workmanship used for later additions and renovations were not high quality and impacted the buildings’ ability to withstand the quake.
Image: Screenshot, Ortak
Ortak is an independent newsroom set up by three award-winning investigative reporters. This — their first project — is a deep dive into a trolling network on the social media platform X. The network they uncovered is made up of more than 100 accounts that systematically post, according to the reporters, “in favor of companies or politicians and try to misinform the public.”
The investigation began after a social media storm related to a cyanide leak at a gold mine — news that a large number of people falsely dismissed as “fake.” Using that as a launch pad, the reporters dug into the network to find trolling activities carried out for companies targeting the end consumer, using tactics such as discrediting opponents, reputation management, and damage control.
Over the course of nine stories, the reporters analyzed a timeline of posts and explored targets and potential motives. The network they discovered could be just one many active on the platform, they report. It’s interesting to note, too, that the data from the investigation is accessible, open to reuse, and can be downloaded.
Image: Shutterstock
Plastic waste has become a global problem, and this six-part investigation by Kısa Dalga explores how the plastic waste industry sends its products to Turkey from numerous countries around the world.
Investigative journalist Mehveş Evin explored reams of data – including from the Everyday Plastic report and the Environmental Investigation Agency — to understand how Turkey, which breaks records in plastic waste purchasing, is also the second-worst offender for polluting the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
The reporter finds that it is not only European countries, but also the US, Israel, Morocco, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Tanzania, and Tunisia that sell plastic waste to Turkey – a trade that has gained momentum since China cut back on global waste recycling.
Evin also uncovered how recycling companies benefit from tax exemptions and incentives and looked into illegal shipments, and the environmental and public health implications of this trade.
Image: Screenshot, Artı Gerçek
Investigative journalist Hale Gönültaş explored plans by the Islamic State group to carry out “suicide bombing” attacks on consulates, churches, and synagogues in Turkey. In four serialized articles for the independent news site Artı Gerçek, Gönültas detailed how the group planned an attack on two European consulates after a Quran was set ablaze during a protest overseas. Elsewhere, her work explored how some members of ISIS are allegedly using Turkey as a base, and delved into how convicted militants are eligible for early release after seven years in jail. Using a court indictment and witness statements, she examined the recruitment of militants from Dagestan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Azerbaijan, and how ISIS allegedly sends personnel to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia from Turkey, through the use of fake IDs and passports.
While the reporting was more exploratory than deeply investigative, it provoked a huge reaction. Unfortunately, the journalist received several threats as a result of this work, forcing her into exile, but she continues to investigate.
The Monument Counter keeps a record of all the women killed in Turkey “to commemorate women who lost their lives due to domestic violence.” Image: Screenshot, Euronews, December 17, 2024
Gender-based violence in Turkey led to the killing of more than 400 women in the country in 2024. The tech writer and investigative journalist Çağla Üren wanted to dive into how far “incel” ideology — derived from the longer phrase involuntary celibacy — was responsible.
She investigated a recent spate of femicides linked to the so-called “incel” worldview, which is “based on the idea that attractiveness is predetermined by genetic factors… Incels believe that they are ‘condemned to involuntary celibacy’ because they lack these physical characteristics,” she explained.
In a two-part series for Euronews, Üren detailed the ways in which extremist followers of the incel movement organize and how this translates into hate speech. Her reports also looked at how incel groups organize on digital platforms such as Discord, and how when femicides took place in Turkey, these networks came to the fore. In the second part of her investigation, she dealt with how young people are threatened and lured into extremist social networks.
Image: Screenshot, Lighthouse Reports
This collaborative story was carried out by several news outlets and involved more than 20 journalists working for nearly seven months. At its heart is an investigation into a deportation crisis that Europe is ignoring.
The investigation by Lighthouse Reports and partners revealed how the EU has funneled hundreds of millions of euros into a shadowy deportation system in Turkey. The funding has allowed Ankara to establish around 30 removal centers, which according to reporters, has created “one of the world’s largest migrant detention systems.”
Using internal EU documents obtained via FOI requests, interviews with more than a dozen European diplomats and officials both in Brussels and in Turkey, plus a document trail, the team found refugees in Turkey are being rounded up on the street, locked away, and then forced to sign “voluntary” return forms.
The investigation exposed the complex and often controversial relationship between Turkey and the EU in managing migration. While the EU has provided significant financial assistance to Turkey for border control and deportation efforts, there are serious human rights issues surrounding the treatment of deported individuals and the risks they face upon return to countries experiencing conflict or persecution.
Pınar Dağ is GIJN’s Turkish Editor. She is also a lecturer in the new media department of Kadir Has University and the co-founder of the Data Literacy Association (DLA), Data Journalism Platform Turkey, and DağMedya. Since 2012, she has been organizing data workshops for journalists and, for the past three years, has been on the pre-jury of the Sigma Data Journalism Awards.
2024-12-18 16:00:43
Ongoing conflicts in several countries in the Southeast Asia region, especially in Myanmar and Cambodia, have allowed transnational cybercrimes to flourish as international criminal networks exploit instability. Investigative journalists in Southeast Asia have tackled one of the most complex, multi-faceted examples: digital slavery.
“Scam factories,” often based in border areas such as the Myanmar-Thailand border, draw thousands of young people with the promise of jobs, who then become trapped in a form of modern slavery orchestrated by global crime networks. Investigative reporting has revealed how tens of thousands of Indonesians, as well as citizens of other nearby countries, have become victims of this practice — in which scammer syndicates hold people hostage and force them to work stealing from others online. The UN estimates that 120,000 people are trapped in scam compounds in Southeast Asia, particularly Myanmar and Cambodia.
Environmental destruction also remains a major issue in Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, a Rappler investigation uncovered the environmental and political causes behind a landslide that killed 27 people. In Indonesia, a collaboration between GIJN member Jaring and news magazine Tempo uncovered fraudulent practices in the fishing industry, allegedly involving the families of state officials, and the Narasi team exposed the greenwashing claims of the government-endorsed nickel downstreaming policy.
There will be plenty of challenges in the years to come. Indonesia, for example, has a new president who has immediately raised concerns among civil society networks about his seemingly antagonistic policies toward press freedom and freedom of expression.
The list of investigations included in this year’s Southeast Asia round-up emphasizes the region’s increasingly sophisticated cross-border crimes, but also how investigative journalists consistently play an important role in exposing them — through rigorous verification, innovative digital tools, and visually striking presentation.
Image: Screenshot, YouTube, Deduktif
Digital slavery in Southeast Asia remains a large, complex issue, and is still rarely covered by Indonesia’s media although tens of thousands of young people are believed to have become victims. The government’s passive attitude in handling the issue exacerbates the situation.
In this documentary, investigative news site Deduktif uncovered the practices of a transnational criminal network behind a scam operation in the city of Shwe Kokko on the Myanmar-Thailand border, which has become a hub for online gambling, trafficking, and fraud operations. The network allegedly includes politicians, armed organizations, Myanmar’s military junta, Chinese organized crime members, and prominent businessmen in multiple countries. Deduktif reconstructed the recruitment process for the victims and managed to verify the operation’s headquarters at a hotel. They interviewed former victims, tracked the coordinates of scam centers, mapped the actors behind them, and managed to piece together the operation’s flow of funds.
Indonesia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs emphasized that the agency continues to try to bring home more Indonesians stuck in these scams. In October 2024, it freed 12 Indonesians that had been trapped on the Myanmar-Thailand border and said 69 more people were in the process of being returned.
“Border Hell” was nominated for Best Short Documentary at the prestigious 2024 Indonesian Film Festival (FFI) Awards.
Image: Screenshot, DW
An investigative unit at German broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) also reported on scam factories fueled by digital or cyber slavery. Through field investigations with escaped survivors and activists, DW uncovered part of the complex, global network of businesses and associations behind operations at the prison-like KK Park, a major scam compound in Myawaddy, Myanmar. Here, DW reported, thousands of people have been trafficked from around the world and forced to work up to 17 hours a day — at gunpoint or under threat of torture or murder — to trick people in Europe, the US, and China into making bogus cryptocurrency investments.
DW uncovered alleged links between KK Park and global organized crime networks. Following the money with information from several scammed victims led them to cryptocurrency wallets for collecting scammed victims’ funds. They then traced one of these wallets to a Thailand-based Chinese businessman who is part of a larger network of overseas business people connected to Chinese organized crime, and, ultimately, a prominent Triad leader.
Image: Screenshot, Jaring
Nonprofit publisher Jaring collaborated with Indonesian weekly Tempo to reveal the suspicious practices of the fishing industry in Eastern Indonesia, which is rarely covered. Relying on testimony from victims and local fishermen, backed up with ship identification, tracking, ownership data, and satellite imagery, the team traced the locations of illegal ships that — despite already being sanctioned for modern slavery practices and lacking the necessary documents — were able to operate freely in the Arafura Sea between Australia and the island of New Guinea.
The series also uncovered that relatives of high-ranking government officials have business links to a fishing company operating a ship that had been heavily sanctioned for illegal fishing. One official responded to questions from the team to say that he was not involved with the fishing industry or his relative’s businesses.
Image: Screenshot, Narasi
Indonesian nickel is an important component in electric vehicle (EV) batteries, and as global demand for nickel soars, the government wants to position the country as a center for international battery supply chains. Nickel “downstreaming” is a set of government policies intending to increase domestic nickel refining, which has dramatically raised nickel export values and, with it, Indonesia’s revenue.
But downstreaming, while touted as part of a clean energy transition, has high environmental and public health costs. In this documentary, the team at media start-up Narasi — through field investigations supported by laboratory tests — revealed the negative impacts of nickel downstreaming in Weda Bay, in North Maluku province. Each year, there is more and more deforestation to make way for the nickel industry; the Sagea River, the lifeline of the community, has turned a murky color and has been polluted by heavy metals and other hazardous substances, strongly suspected to be caused by mining activities upstream. Land conversion has also triggered major environmental disasters, such as floods.
Representatives of mining companies denied responsibility for the river pollution, pointing out that they had not conducted any activity around or along the river, and that they regularly test river water internally and with independent laboratories.
Image: Screenshot, Konsentris, IndonesiaLeaks
In Indonesia, damaged roads are a perennial problem, particularly in Lampung province on the southern tip of Sumatra. This collaboration involving several Jakarta-based outlets — members of the IndonesiaLeaks platform — and the Lampung-based independent outlet Konsentris, revealed the truth behind the dire state of the province’s roads, where even the Indonesian president’s official car got stuck in a large pothole.
Through carefully tracing thousands of tender documents and scouring sources, the team’s reporting exposed how big-budget infrastructure projects have been repeatedly awarded to companies affiliated with well-known politicians, businessmen, or journalists — or ones with opaque ownership. With publicly available government, procurement, and company data, the team found 1,001 road projects during the 2020–22 period, with a total value of IDR 1.9 trillion (US$120 million). These projects, the report, often failed to complete needed repairs or meet necessary specifications, such as asphalt or cement standards. They also reported on the practice of “borrowing the flag”, where companies use the name or staff of other companies to apply for tenders, which suggested monopolistic practices.
Kusiong Beach in Maguindanao del Norte, Philippines. Image: Shutterstock
Rappler’s captivating investigative series and documentary on the Teduray tragedy — a landslide that killed 27 people in Maguindanao del Norte, Philippines, in October 2022 — uncovered the political and environmental factors that contributed to the disaster.
In 2020, around 300 families, members of the Indigenous Teduray community, were forced to relocate from their shoreline homes in Kusiong to a resettlement area in the foothills of Mount Minandar — where heavy rains from Tropical Storm Paeng later caused the fatal landslide. The Tedurays had been fighting for an ancestral domain claim to their native area since 2005. After they were displaced, Rappler wrote, three private luxury resorts were built on the contested coastline, one of which is owned by a well-connected political family.
In its months-long investigation, Rappler discovered that resettlement procedures were not apparently followed; there was no relocation permit, and the relevant government ministry said it had not been consulted or involved. Community sources said they were given anonymous letters telling them to move, and meager sums of cash and rice as compensation. Rappler also reported that, according to the government, required lease agreements have not been issued for the three private resorts. Rappler has received no response, despite repeated requests, from the resort owners.
Image: Screenshot, Malaysiakini
GIJN member and GIJC25 co-host Malaysiakini, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network, investigated one of the largest palm oil plantations, located in virgin forests close to the country’s largest environmentally protected land area. The plantation’s logging activities threaten endangered species, such as tigers, and have disrupted and polluted the water supply for nearby villagers. It is also, according to one environmental consultant, “the worst-managed oil palm plantation in Malaysia.” Forestry and agriculture data, satellite images, and soil samples showed that the deforestation is “chaotic,” leaving the plantation patchy, barren — and overrun with elephants that damage the infrastructure. In addition, the palm oil yield has been “laughably” low.
Malaysiakini’s investigation explained, with compelling data visualizations, the economics of palm oil production, where profits are slow to materialize because a palm oil tree takes four years to mature. For this and other reasons, it’s not unusual for plantations to stall or fail, citing “wildlife conflict,” and for the developers to sell the valuable logged timber instead. The team also noted that 95% of the plantation land in Panang is being developed by corporations with political or royal ownership links. The report called on the government to conduct further investigations into the handling of plantation approvals and better enforcement of environmental protections.
On December 17, Malaysiakini followed up the April investigation with an article linking prominent banks to large loans for plantation developers despite many projects failing — calling the banks’ credibility and independence into question.
Image: Screenshot, Narasi, YouTube
On March 20, hundreds of Rohingya refugees were found adrift in Indonesian waters off West Aceh after their boat capsized, killing 67 out of 142 passengers. This incident — amid an increase in boat crossings from Myanmar and Bangladesh — became a focus for disinformation and hate speech on social media. This Narasi documentary investigating spikes in online hate speech noted that this “organized hate” in comment sections led to “real action,” such as the eviction of Rohingya refugees from shelters in Aceh. Narasi collected thousands of pieces of content mentioning the Rohingya issue on social media platforms, including X, Instagram, Facebook, and especially TikTok, and found that the posts and videos were part of an organized campaign involving influencers with small and huge followings alike. They also found that bots generated massive engagement and comment data.
Narasi also looked into how politicians exploited the Rohingya refugee issue to gain public support ahead of Indonesia’s February 2024 presidential election. A statement by then-presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto, three months before the Aceh boat sinking, in which he talks about prioritizing national interests over refugees was massively amplified on TikTok and X — by accounts associated with support for the former army general. Narasi’s attempts to confirm several names involved with the Prabowo-Gibran presidential campaign team were rebuffed or went unanswered.
Tri Joko Her Riadi started his journalistic career in 2007 as a reporter at Pikiran Rakyat. He is currently GIJN’s Indonesian Editor. He also holds the post of editor-in-chief of BandungBergerak.id, an alternative media outlet that publishes data-driven stories about Bandung, Indonesia. He has received recognition at the Elizabeth O’Neill Journalism Awards, and several other local journalism awards in Indonesia.
2024-12-17 16:00:57
Investigative journalism in China operates under notoriously challenging conditions. While numerous in-depth stories are produced every year, genuine investigative journalism remains exceedingly rare. This is why in recent years Editor’s Picks GIJN has had to pivot from featuring investigative reporting “in China” to “about China” — investigative pieces published within China are scarce, but there’s no shortage of excellent investigative work about the country.
In 2024, two investigations took China by storm. The first exposed a death caused by torture during police interrogation, and the second delved into the chaotic practices in the tanker truck industry, where some vehicles were found to be transporting edible soybean oil right after unloading coal for fuel production, posing significant food safety risks. Although the first story was swiftly censored, Chinese netizens rallied to spread it far and wide, revealing to many the brutal reality of China’s “crackdown on crime” campaign. While it did not lead to substantial change, the heightened public scrutiny undoubtedly served as a deterrent to police brutality. The latter story on the tanker truck industry, meanwhile, sparked a massive public outcry, prompting Chinese authorities to intervene and launch a comprehensive overhaul of this long-standing systemic issue. These events reignited the Chinese public’s appreciation for the power of investigative journalism, a craft that had grown somewhat stagnant in recent years.
Meanwhile, overseas media’s investigations on China in 2024 were particularly noteworthy. Some probed China’s potentially genocidal policies in Xinjiang, while others exposed a web of collusion among China’s elite. Several investigations focused on Chinese communities abroad, including those who had overcome immense adversity to seek a new life in the US, as well as a complex fraud perpetrated on vulnerable Chinese immigrants.
Below are our picks for 2024’s best investigations relating to China.
Sun Renze’s mother, Ren Tingting, along with her daughter-in-law and granddaughter, burned joss paper on the street to console her son’s spirit. Image: Caixin, Wang Heyan
In 2018, 30-year-old Sun Renze was detained by the police on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” During his detention, he was subjected to brutal interrogation tactics that ultimately led to his death. The police claimed that Sun had choked while “drinking water,” but his mother, Ren Tingting, rejected this explanation. Over the next four years, she tirelessly fought for justice for her son’s unexplained death. Finally, in November 2023, eight police officers involved in the case were sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to 13 years for intentional injury.
This investigation not only pieced together the events leading to Sun Renze’s death through court records and relevant evidence but also exposed the ruthless nature of China’s “crackdown on crime” campaign. Some of the police officers involved in the case had been warned by their superiors that failure to extract a confession of Sun would brand them as “protective umbrellas” for the criminal underworld. It was this high-pressure policy and the lack of oversight of police power that indirectly contributed to Sun Renze’s tragic fate. Although the investigation was swiftly censored after its release, Chinese internet users defied the risk of account suspension and shared it widely on their social media platforms. As a result, this suppressed investigation became a viral sensation in China in early 2024, drawing unprecedented attention to the dark realities of the country’s law enforcement practices.
Image: Screenshot, The Beijing News
This groundbreaking investigation on the trucking industry by The Beijing News revealed that many tanker truckers routinely break rules about which liquids they are allowed to transport and often alternate between a range of substances, including edible oil, coal-based oil, industrial wastewater, plasticizers, waste oil, and non-hazardous chemical liquids such as water reducers. When switching between cargoes, these trucks frequently forgo cleaning procedures, leading to contamination by residual chemicals. The investigation also implicated major grain and oil companies in this practice, including a state-owned enterprise that benefits from government policies.
The story sparked widespread public concern, coverage in other media, and prompted the formation of a joint investigation team involving multiple national ministries and commissions. At the end of August, the authorities released their findings, acknowledging the dangerous practice and imposing penalties on implicated companies. Additionally, a targeted rectification campaign was launched to address the issue.
Independent investigative journalist Chai Jing dug deep into the mysterious poisoning of Zhu Link. Image: Screenshot, YouTube
In 1995, Zhu Ling, an undergraduate chemistry major at Tsinghua University in Beijing, was intentionally poisoned. The lethal element thallium was found in her body, which caused severe neurological damage and lifelong disability. The case aroused widespread public concern, and the police quickly found a suspect but then hastily closed the case due to “insufficient evidence.” The case remains unsolved, and Zhu Ling died in December 2023.
Through a series of in-depth interviews with the expert who analyzed Zhu Ling’s hair, her former classmates at Tsinghua, and her parents, independent investigative journalist Chai Jing sought to piece together the puzzling details surrounding the incident. The three-part interview series focused on critical questions: What can the accumulated dosage and timeline of heavy metal traces in Zhu Ling’s hair reveal about the events leading up to her poisoning? How did vital evidence in the thallium poisoning case inexplicably vanish from Tsinghua University? And perhaps most importantly, why did an investigation that appeared to be progressing smoothly suddenly grind to a halt?
Image: Screenshot, HK01
This past year, several Hong Kong universities were rocked by scandals involving fake academic credentials. Many applicants from mainland China were found to have used falsified qualifications to apply to these institutions. Often, what sits behind these applicants are study abroad agencies that, for a hefty fee, provide a comprehensive service, including the fabrication of fake application materials and the submission of applications to universities. The University of Hong Kong (HKU) has revealed that some agencies have gone as far as forging entire sets of transcripts and graduation certificates from top US universities, sending them directly to HKU from the US. The forged documents, including transcripts, degree certificates, envelopes, and seals, are nearly indistinguishable from the genuine ones.
The local news outlet HK01 spent months investigating this issue, publishing multiple stories. Beyond going undercover to contact several mainland study abroad agencies and uncover their forgery techniques, the reporters also discovered Hong Kong companies openly advertising fake degree services. Even more alarmingly, some have hinted at “cooperating” with mainland international English testing centers, raising suspicions of these companies bribing overseas schools and exam centers to provide “authentic” certificates to their clients.
Image: Screenshot, BBC
This year-long BBC investigation revealed that major supermarkets in the UK and Germany may have unwittingly sold ketchup made from tomatoes harvested by forced laborers in China’s Xinjiang region. Conducting research in Xinjiang is notoriously difficult, but the BBC team worked with publicly available information, including social media searches, satellite images, corporate records, and shipping data. This allowed them to gain a comprehensive understanding of the reality on the ground and trace the journey of these tomatoes from forced labor fields to European shores.
The investigators spoke with over a dozen Uyghur and Kazakh exiles, shedding light on the oppression faced by these ethnic groups due to their language, religion, and cultural identity. Several witnesses, breaking their silence for the first time, recounted to the BBC their experiences of being compelled to perform backbreaking work in the tomato industry. They provided harrowing details of the severe punishments meted out to those who dared to dissent or failed to meet stringent quotas.
Image: Screenshot, Channel News Asia
Following three years of “zero-COVID” policy, China’s economy faces a crisis. Political pressure and economic decline have spurred many Chinese people to try for a new life in the United States. According to data from US Customs and Border Protection, Chinese nationals are now the fastest-growing migrant group trying to get into the US from Mexico. They face a long, dangerous journey to get there: first to Ecuador, the country closest to the US that grants Chinese passport holders visa-free entry. From there, they need to cross Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico to reach California.
In this three-part investigative documentary series from Singapore-headquartered Channel News Asia, correspondent Wei Du and a team of journalists trek the long route with Chinese migrants to find out what has driven them to “walk the line,” the challenges and dangers they face on the way — traversing jungle, the Darien Gap, and drug cartel territory — and what awaits them when they arrive. They also produced a behind-the-scenes documentary in which the team shares the challenges in making the trip and producing the film.
Image: Shutterstock, Gil C
A joint investigation by The New York Times and The Wire China obtained confidential documents revealing that a corrupt investor — the now-imprisoned Chinese tycoon Xiao Jianhua — was linked through investments of around US$1 billion to the companies of one of China’s most successful entrepreneurs. According to the report, an investment firm run by the tycoon secretly amassed substantial stakes in several companies under the umbrella of Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma. The reporting team reviewed more than 2,000 confidential documents that created a paper trail to a clandestine acquisition spree spanned five years, they write, and was facilitated through a network of shell companies and proxies, all evading public disclosure. (They note that the documents do not show that Jack Ma was aware of any investments.)
In the past, Xiao Jianhua has acted as a front man for the families of high-ranking Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials, helping them transfer wealth overseas and orchestrating asset deals. In 2017, Xiao Jianhua was seized at a luxurious Hong Kong hotel and taken back to mainland China. Subsequently, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison on charges ranging from bribery to corruption. His financial empire was vast, with controlling stakes, shareholdings, and indirect ownership in scores of listed companies.
In response to the story, Alibaba issued a statement denying any commercial ties between Jack Ma and Xiao Jianhua. It also questioned the credibility of sources and the veracity of the claims cited in the report.
Image: Shutterstock
This investigative report from a team at NPR unravels an “elaborate long con” in which a Chinese dissident in the Netherlands, Gao Zi, was defrauded out of US$17,000. He and his family were manipulated through fake email accounts purporting to be, among others, Thai police, Thai Airways, and a Dutch immigration authority. The intent of the ruse was to trick them into thinking they’d been implicated in bomb threats against Chinese embassies and European airports and get them to turn over credit card details. At first, Gao believed the Chinese government may have called in the bomb threats using his name, as a new form of transnational repression — perhaps because of his close association with a high-profile fellow dissident.
But when NPR tried to corroborate Gao’s story, they discovered that all the email accounts were forged; the European police also said they had never heard of these bomb threats. Gao now believes a dissident friend — the “one common thread” in the story — was behind the fake email accounts. The dissident, when questioned by NPR, denies any involvement. Investigative reporter Frank Langfitt pored over more than 700 emails and months of private messages and conducted dozens of hours of interviews, including with Gao Zhi and his son, to build a “road map” of the complex scam. But beyond those details, NPR explains how this is also “a story about how the fear that the Communist Party generates can spread like a virus among its critics overseas and be weaponized by almost anyone.” It also raises questions about the role of the media in such cases; Gao Zhi admitted that he had trusted his friend due to the extensive media coverage he had received from reputable outlets.
