-
2 weeks ago | 
icij.org | Sam Ellefson
Cyprus missed the European Union’s deadline to create a long-awaited national sanctions implementation unit after objections from the Cyprus Bar Association prompted lawmakers to delay passing the necessary legislative package. The bar association pushed back against the legislation during a May 12 parliamentary committee hearing, arguing it violated the Cyprus constitution by allowing the unit to operate in English, which is not an official language of the country.
-
3 weeks ago | 
icij.org | Sam Ellefson
Two days before Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Malaysia in April, police officers arrested more than 70 Falun Gong practitioners and allegedly held them until after Xi left the country, echoing a pattern of detention identified by ICIJ in its recent China Targets investigation.
-
2 months ago | 
icij.org | Sam Ellefson
A new documentary explores the clandestine trafficking networks that exploited child soldiers to plunder Cambodian temples, ultimately delivering ancient treasures into the collections of elite Western museums and billionaires. “LOOT: A Story of Crime and Redemption,” which recently screened at the Cambodian International Film Festival in Phnom Penh, builds on Pandora Papers revelations about controversial British antiquities dealer Douglas Latchford.
-
2 months ago | 
icij.org | Sam Ellefson
A Russian-owned, Seychelles-based, offshore services provider that created hundreds of anonymous shell companies for Russian oligarchs, tax dodgers and money launderers has lost its operating licenses following a cross-border investigation by Finance Uncovered, Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation and the BBC.
-
2 months ago | 
icij.org | Sam Ellefson
A National Football League player. A lawyer to 20th-century media celebrities. A Washington insider. And an American spy who helped orchestrate one of the largest foreign espionage operations ever conducted in the United States. Ernest Cuneo — a figure in American history who has, until now, mostly flown under the radar — embodied all these personas.
-
Mar 5, 2025 | 
icij.org | Sam Ellefson
On Sunday, the Treasury Department announced that it would not enforce part of a groundbreaking transparency law aimed at curbing money laundering and tax fraud, a move critics say will weaken national security and create new pathways for illicit financial activity.
-
Feb 13, 2025 | 
icij.org | David Kenner |Sam Ellefson
Investigative news organizations across the globe are scrambling to survive and fearing a backlash from authoritarian regimes following the Trump administration’s foreign assistance freeze and other moves to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development. The United States allocated $268 million in 2025 to support independent media and the free flow of information. A USAID fact sheet from 2023 that was on its website before the site went dark on Feb.
-
Feb 12, 2025 | 
icij.org | David Kenner |Sam Ellefson
Investigative news organizations across the globe are scrambling to survive and fearing a backlash from authoritarian regimes following the Trump administration’s foreign assistance freeze and other moves to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development. The United States allocated $268 million in 2025 to support independent media and the free flow of information. A USAID fact sheet from 2023 that was on its website before the site went dark on Feb.
-
Jan 24, 2025 | 
icij.org | Sam Ellefson
Top U.K. political donors and a Scottish football star were among more than 500 secret shareholders of an offshore firm behind an elite golf club in Scotland identified by investigative journalism outlet The Ferret in leaked Paradise Papers documents. Details about the ownership of the exclusive Loch Lomond Golf Club were not previously known as the club is owned and operated by a firm incorporated in the Cayman Islands, a British overseas territory and a secrecy jurisdiction.
-
Jan 17, 2025 | 
icij.org | Sam Ellefson
Britain’s anti-corruption minister resigned Tuesday following intense media scrutiny over whether she benefited financially from her relationship with her aunt, former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, as well as a flurry of reporting about how London properties she lived in were paid for. Tulip Siddiq had served as the economic secretary to the U.K.’s Treasury after the Labour Party came to power last July.
