Togo, Yemen, Austria and Bolivia. These are just some of the countries newly represented by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ trusted network of members.
The network of investigative reporters now spans 83 countries and territories, after ICIJ’s independent network committee selected 22 members to join the network.
Each of these investigative reporters has worked on ICIJ investigations, including the Paradise Papers in 2017 and the Panama Papers in 2016.
Head of the network committee Minna Knus-Galán said the committee was very impressed with the skills and the desire to collaborate across borders that new members demonstrated.
Knus-Galán said: “Many of them come from countries where ICIJ hasn’t had any members before.
“They are not only excellent investigative journalists with high integrity and professional standards, but they have also proven to be great team members with experience of cross border investigations.
“And that’s what it’s all about: collaboration, sharing and helping each other in order to do watchdog journalism that matters.’’
ICIJ has not previously had members in Uruguay, Mali, Austria, Bolivia, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Dominican Republic, Syria, Togo or Yemen.
The new members are:
Alicia Ortega Hasbun, Dominican Republic, is an investigative reporter known for uncovering corruption scandals. She has six Emmys for her investigative reporting at UNIVISION 23 and NBC6 in Miami, Florida. ICIJ recently spoke with her about threats she received after an investigation. Read her full bio. Follow her on Twitter.
David Dembele, Mali, is editor-in-chief at Depeches du Mali/L’Investigateur. To cultivate investigative journalism in Mali, Dembele created the Malian Network of Journalists Investigation (RMJI), which is composed of a dozen journalists from the Malian press. Read his full bio. Follow him on Twitter.
Emilia Delfino, Argentina, is the deputy editor for politics at Diario Perfil. She works as a member of “Investiga Lava Jato” (Operation Car Wash), a team of more than 20 journalists from eleven countries established to pursue the spreading corruption investigation. Read her full bio. Follow her on Twitter.
Guilherme Amado, Brazil, is an investigative reporter for the daily newspaper O Globo. He is a 2017-2018 John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford. In 2016, Amado was the only Brazilian member of the multinational Car Wash Operation probe, the biggest investigation of corruption in Brazil’s history. Read his full bio. Follow him on Twitter.
Guillermo Draper, Uruguay, is the politics editor of the Uruguayan weekly newspaper Búsqueda. His investigation into Vice President Raúl Sendic’s personal use of a state-owned company’s credit card won a national press prize and an honorable mention by the Ipys Latin American Investigative Journalism Award in 2017. Read his full bio. Follow him on Twitter.
Jyri Hänninen, Finland, is a journalist for the Finnish Broadcasting Company. He has published a range of stories on tax havens and how wealthy Finnish individuals and companies are using offshore havens. He is the author of five books. Read his full bio.
Karlijn Kuijpers, The Netherlands, is a freelance investigative journalist at Investico. Kuijpers has masters degrees in both environmental studies and criminology and investigated the role of international corporations in illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Read her full bio. Follow her on Twitter.
Koami ‘Maxime’ Domegni, Togo, is best known as Maxime Domegni and is a prize-winning investigative reporter. He works for the investigative newspaper l’Alternative, but also covers West African issues for JusticeInfo.Net. Read his full bio. Follow him on Twitter.
Micael Pereira, Portugal, is an investigative journalist at Expresso, the country’s leading newspaper. During a career spanning more than 20 years, he has also exposed Portugal’s role in the CIA’s secret rendition program after 9/11, worked on Wikileaks’ diplomatic cables leak. Read his full bio. Follow him on Twitter.
Michael Nikbakhsh, Austria, is an investigative journalist at profil, an Austrian weekly news magazine. He has been a reporter since 1990 and now specializes in white-collar crime covering a number of scandals in Austria. Read his full bio. Follow him on Twitter.
Mokhtar al-Ibrahim, Syria, is the editor at Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism hub in Anman. He has won several awards for his work including his investigation titled ‘Fatherless Children in Syria’. Read his full bio. Follow him on Twitter.
Mohammed Komani, Yemen, is an investigative journalist who has worked as an editor at the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalists since 2016. He coaches reporters in Arab countries on their investigative work. Read his full bio. Follow him on Twitter.
Musab AL-shawabkeh, Jordan, is an investigative journalist currently working as an editor and trainer for Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism. He also helped establish the Investigative Journalism Unit in the Community Media Network (Radio Al Balad and the Amman Net website) which he led for four years. Read his full bio. Follow him on Twitter.
Natalia Viana, Brazil, is a co-founder and co-director of Brazilian investigative journalism Agência Pública, founded in 2011 by women reporters. She has won several awards as a journalist and is the author or co-author of four books about human rights violations. Read her full bio.
Nelfi Fernandez Reyes, Bolivia, is an investigative journalist at El Deber Newspaper. She has graduate degrees in organized crime coverage and digital journalism and was a correspondent and a member of the U.N. Peace Missions in Haiti. Read her full bio. Follow her on Twitter.
Ntibinyane ‘Alvin’ Ntibinyane, Botswana, is a co-founder of INK Centre for Investigative Journalism, a non-profit news outlet that does investigative journalism in the public interest. Read his full bio. Follow him on Twitter.
Ola Westerberg, Sweden, is is an award-winning investigative journalist working for TT News Agency based in Stockholm, Sweden. He typically works on stories that overlap the domestic/foreign news barrier. Read his full bio. Follow him on Twitter.
P Vaidyanathan Iyer, India, is part of the leadership team at The Indian Express. An award-winning investigative reporter, he is currently an Edward Mason Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School until June 2018. Read his full bio. Follow him on Twitter.
Pelin Ünker, Turkey, is an award-winning investigative journalist at Cumhuriyet newspaper who has investigated corruption, tax avoidance and evasion, privatizations and public contracts. Read her full bio. Follow her on Twitter.
Sandra Crucianelli, Argentina, founded the news portal Sololocal.info and is also a data and investigative reporter. She is also a member of Connectas, a collaboration among Latin American reporters that worked on the Panama Papers. Read her full bio. Follow her on Twitter.
Elza Sandrine Sawadogo, Burkina Faso, has worked as a journalist at L’Economiste du Faso, a leading economic weekly since 2013. She specializes in financial and economic reporting. She enjoys working collaboratively with journalists in West Africa. Read her full bio. Follow her on Twitter.
Yasuomi Sawa, Japan, is a senior news writer of Investigative and In-Depth Reporting Unit at Kyodo News, the country’s leading news service. His recent work includes stories of sex exploitation, the government’s failure to track school enrolment of immigrant children and extreme crowding in public shelters for abused children. Read his full bio. Follow him on Twitter.