Founded 2011 · A global network of investigative reporters across 94 countries

IAOIJ International Association of
Investigative Journalism
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A committee-room table strewn with documents under bright hearing-room lights

Our impact

Reporting that changes the record

Investigations are only the beginning. When our members publish, the consequences follow — frozen accounts, criminal charges, resignations, new laws and money returned to the public. This is what the work has set in motion.

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Since 2011

The measurable weight of the work

We count impact conservatively, and only when it can be traced to reporting by our members and partners. Even held to that standard, the ledger is substantial.

$26bnAssets frozen or recovered
410Officials & executives charged
73Laws & policies changed
6,500+Reporters trained

Cumulative outcomes attributable to IAOIJ investigations since the Association was founded in 2011.

How impact happens

From a single document to a different outcome

Investigations don't change anything by themselves. Impact comes from what happens after publication — and from the network that makes each story impossible to ignore.

We can never promise an outcome. What we can build are the conditions in which outcomes become far more likely: airtight evidence, simultaneous reach across borders, and the stamina to keep following a story long after the first headline fades.

  • 1

    Investigate & verify

    Members pool documents, data and sources across borders. Every claim is checked, and checked again, before a word is published.

  • 2

    Publish everywhere at once

    Findings land simultaneously across partner newsrooms in dozens of countries and languages — so the story cannot be contained, buried or spun.

  • 3

    Pressure builds

    Readers react, regulators take notice, rival politicians start asking questions. Watchdogs open files; prosecutors request the documents.

  • 4

    The record changes

    Charges, resignations, fines, new laws and recovered assets follow — outcomes we track, verify against official sources and publish.

Case studies

Three investigations, and what came after

The clearest way to understand our impact is to follow a story from the leak to the ledger. Here is what changed after three of our recent cross-border investigations.

Ageing oil tankers anchored in a foggy port
Sanctions · Shipping · 38 newsrooms

The Shadow Fleet

A nine-month collaboration traced more than 600 ageing tankers moving sanctioned crude under flags of convenience — and named the insurers, brokers and ports that keep the trade afloat.

What changed

  • Two governments expanded sanctions to cover more than 90 newly identified vessels.
  • A leading protection-and-indemnity insurer dropped cover for 40 ships after their ownership was exposed.
  • Port authorities in three countries opened inspections of flagged-out tankers.
  • A parliamentary committee summoned regulators to explain enforcement gaps.

Read the investigation

Tax & Offshore · 29 countries

The Offshore Veil

Leaked corporate registries from six secrecy jurisdictions revealed the hidden owners behind €14bn in property and shell companies — including public officials who had declared none of it.

What changed

  • Courts froze more than €1.3bn in assets across four jurisdictions.
  • A serving finance minister resigned within a week of publication.
  • One country passed a public beneficial-ownership registry law that had stalled for years.
  • Two banks were fined by regulators for lapsed due-diligence checks.

Read the investigation

Aerial view of a marina full of luxury yachts
Pills moving along a pharmaceutical production line
Health · 17 countries

The Pharma Papers

Internal documents showed how a generics manufacturer buried unfavourable trial data on a drug sold in 40 countries, and how regulators were kept in the dark for years.

What changed

  • Medicines regulators in five countries reopened their reviews of the drug.
  • A national health service suspended new prescriptions pending the review.
  • Compensation claims were filed on behalf of affected patients.
  • Stronger trial-data disclosure rules were tabled in two parliaments.

Read the investigation

By the numbers

2025 in figures

A single year of the Association's reporting, training and advocacy — the raw material from which the longer-term outcomes are built.

47Investigations published
68Countries reached
9.2mDocument downloads & reads
52Parliamentary citations
14Awards won
38Reporting grants awarded

In their words

What the record shows

The people closest to these stories — the editors who ran them, the prosecutors who used them, the legislators who acted on them.

We publish; nothing happens; we publish again. What the IAOIJ changed is the “nothing.” With twelve newsrooms running the same story at once, it became impossible to bury. Lena Ostrowski — Editor-in-Chief, The Ledger
The reporting did in eighteen months what our office could not do in six years. It put the documents, and the people behind them, on the public record. Senior prosecutor, after asset-freeze orders in the Offshore Veil case
I tabled the beneficial-ownership bill the morning after the story ran. Colleagues who had blocked it for years could no longer look away. Marta Silveira — Member of Parliament and sponsor of the registry bill

Recognition

Awards & recognition

Work carried out under our banner and by our members has been honoured by the field's most demanding juries — recognition that also protects reporters by raising the cost of silencing them.

Global Shining Light Award European Press Prize Daniel Pearl Award Sigma Data Journalism Award Fetisov Journalism Award One World Media Award Overseas Press Club Award

Accountability

We show our working

Every figure on this page is drawn from court records, official registers, legislative databases and verified partner reporting — reviewed and updated once a year. We never claim credit for outcomes we cannot trace to the reporting, and we publish the full methodology alongside the numbers.

Read our Annual Impact Report

Impact like this doesn't fund itself.

Every investigation on this page began with a member, a grant, or a reader who cared enough to act. Join the Association, or support the reporting directly.

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