María Teresa Ronderos, Colombia, is a journalist and the director and co-founder of the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP), which since 2019 has published 22 cross-border investigations with more than 80 partners.

Ronderos has held different editorial positions in diverse media in Colombia. She founded and directed VerdadAbierta.com, which specialised in investigating war and peace in her native country.

She is the author of several books, the most recent of which is the bestseller
"Guerras Recicladas" (2014), about the history of paramilitarism.

Her investigative journalism career has been recognised with two Simón Bolívar Colombian national awards (2014, 2021), the Maria Moors Cabot (2007) and the Ortega & Gasset (2019) awards.

Ronderos serves on the boards of the Media Defence and Media Development Investment Fund. She has participated in four investigations with ICIJ.

  • Investigations
  • Stories by María Teresa Ronderos

A tale of two cities

Coastal Cartagena was the first of about 50 cities and towns to privatize its water in Colombia. The capital Bogotá bucked the privatization trend, refused World Bank money and transformed its public utility into the most successful in Colombia.

Feb 11, 2003
Bogota city, Colombia
Investigation: The Water Barons

In Latin America, Big Tobacco partners with money launderers, smugglers

Twenty miles off the northern coast of Venezuela lies a tiny, sunbaked island called Aruba. Like so many self-governing Caribbean islands that cling to the coast of the Americas, it has been a smugglers' paradise since colonial times. For decades, it also has been a linchpin in an illegal tobacco trade that Colombian authorities claim comprised as much as 90 percent of cigarettes sent into Colombia.

Mar 03, 2001
Investigation: Big Tobacco Smuggling