Digging dirt from Brussels to Yangon

From the Bialowieza Forest on the Polish-Belarus border to the depths of the Brazilian Amazon, reporters supported by the Investigative Journalism for Europe fund have left no stone unturned in pursuit of their stories.

In this year-end edition of the IJ4EU Podcast, our hosts reflect on an exceptional 12 months for watchdog journalism, recapping just a few of the stories that have made a splash in Europe and beyond.

“I’ve been amazed at just how global many of the investigations have been this year,” says Timothy Large, who leads the IJ4EU consortium. “These are stories that start in Europe but they take you to Myanmar or Sudan or Brazi or the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

Investigations discussed in this episode include:

• The Gold Chain, exposing how European gold importers turn a blind eye to illegal mining, deforestation and rights abuses in the Amazon
• The West’s Next Plastics Dump, revealing how rich countries are offloading their plastic waste in Myanmar — where citizens are too afraid to say no
• The Edge of Europe, showing how a migration crisis is unfolding on an EU border in the Indian Ocean
• The Jungle, laying bare the dire conditions facing migrants and refugees in Europe’s last primaeval forest along the Polish-Belarusian border
• Bankers of Irregular Migration, revealing how a traditional system for transferring money is a boon to both smugglers and migrants
• Russian Escape, probing how easy it is for Russian oligarchs to evade the sanctions
• Dangerous Diesel, proving how EU-based companies are fueling Russia’s war machine in Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region
• Russia’s War, Europe’s Burden, demonstrating that hundreds of European components have found their way into drones used by Russia in its war against Ukraine
• Defusing a Russian ‘Carbon Bomb’, showing how European companies continued supplying a Russian mega Arctic gas project after the invasion of Ukraine
• The Forever Pollution Project, a collaboration between 18 newsrooms revealing alarming levels of toxic chemical contamination across Europe

Featuring:

• Timothy Large, director of independent media programmes at the International Press Institute (IPI)
• Milica Miletić, project and events coordinator at IPI
• Zlatina Siderova, programme lead for grants at the European Journalism Centre

Editing and production: Timothy Large