With 6 billion people on the planet and 270 million living in the United States, who can blame anyone for thinking that one person can’t make a difference? But don’t believe it for a second. In two decades as an investigative journalist, uncovering impropriety around the nation and abroad, countless times I have seen individuals […]

BATAM ISLAND, Indonesia, April 13, 1999 — “Why should I continue this night business life if he is really the mastermind of the pirates?” Ayu Nani Sabri demanded, plopping her size-three figure into an old sofa inside a dimly lit karaoke bar in Batam. Ayu lives in a three-story bar and apartment house in the […]

Final offensive? By Ahmed Rashid August 5, 1999 LAHORE, Pakistan, August 5, 1999 — Two decades of fighting have destroyed Afghanistan’s normal economy. In its place has grown a criminal economy based on drugs and smuggling, which has proven so lucrative for Afghanistan’s warlords that they have little incentive to try to restore legitimate agriculture […]

Wages of war By Ahmed Rashid August 5, 1999 LAHORE, Pakistan, August 5, 1999 — Since the failed peace talks, the Taliban have been massing their forces along a wide east-west arc 20 kilometres north of Kabul. They are launching what they hope will be a final offensive against the Northern Alliance, the last force […]

LAHORE, Pakistan — As the Taliban launch a new offensive against opposition forces, the threat which this Islamic regime poses to regional stability has gone unnoticed. Terrorists fighting the governments of virtually every Central Asian power find shelter with the Taliban. An equally dangerous by-product is the criminal economy supported by the Taliban, which spreads […]

MANILA, Philippines — When [Executive Director] Bill Luz asked me to address the Makati Business Club two weeks ago, I asked him why he wanted someone so small and so puny to speak for the press. After all, we are supposed to be a powerful institution – loud, bold, fearless, beholden to no one. I […]

PANAMA CITY, July 21, 1999 — Investigative reporter Gustavo Gorriti, an ICIJ member and associate director of La Prensa in Panama, published the following op-ed in The New York Times, July 21, 1998. It is reprinted here with permission. From afar, the recent spate of journalistic embarrassments in the United States suggests that something more […]

LONDON, July 17, 1999 — Western media follow a depressingly familiar formula when it comes to the preparation of a nation for conflict. The way wars are reported in the western media follows a depressingly predictable pattern: stage one, the crisis; stage two, the demonisation of the enemy’s leader; stage three, the demonisation of the […]

LONDON, July 16, 1999 — This article was originally published in The Independent (Britain), July 16, 1999. It is reprinted here with permission. Britain directed a massive bugging operation against the Irish government for 10 years — something that had been kept secret until now. The Ministry of Defence “Electronic Test Facility” a rather mysterious […]

JAKARTA, Indonesia, April 13, 1999 — Bangkok’s The Nation newspaper originally published this series on April 13, 1999. It is reprinted here with permission. For decades Southeast Asian waters have been a hunting ground for murderous pirates who are growing increasingly daring and dangerous. The Nation‘s correspondent in Indonesia, Andreas Harsono, spent over a month […]

NEW YORK — Day-to-day, investigative reporting is about sweat and perseverance. Forget about the widely held view that government officials “leak” embarrassing stories to eager reporters who sit waiting for the phone to ring. You know — and I know — that hardly anything of value falls from the sky like manna from heaven. There […]

It’s a credo that most journalists strive to live by: Don’t share your notes and don’t give out advance copies of your story. But what many American journalists often lose sight of is that while traveling through cyberspace one might unwittingly put his work at risk. Stories that might still be in the tweaking stage […]

LAGOS, Nigeria — Until General Sani Abacha’s death 8 June 1998, Lt.-Gen. Jeremiah Timbut Useni was the second most senior officer in the Nigerian Army. But all that changed over two months ago, when Abacha, Nigeria’s worst dictator died. Not only did Useni lose out in the power-game that followed, he also carried the burden […]

“Can you take a look at this?” asked Joe Davidson’s supervisor at the FBI, handing him a file. Davidson cracked open the folder and was immediately intrigued. A year earlier, in late 1993, an informant had tipped the FBI that a handful of Russian immigrants were throwing huge sums of cash around San Francisco. And […]

MELBOURNE — They told Anna Vladimirovna that if she tried to escape, “things” could happen to her son and family back in the Ukraine. “We were treated like slaves,” the 32-year-old prostitute says. “I was scared that my sister and my son may have been hurt badly if I caused any problems.” The heat didn’t […]

“I will vote for Serpa” — Carlos Castaño By María Cristina Caballero December 15, 1997 “I am the moderated wing of the self-defenses” — Carlos Castaño By María Cristina Caballero December 15, 1997 BOGOTA — In an exclusive interview with Cambio16, the commander of the self-defense leagues says that “the final onslaught” is underway. He […]

BOGOTA, July 28, 1997 — A paramilitary incursion from July 14 to 20 this year by private armed groups that combat guerrilla forces has made this municipality in the Colombia Plains Region into a mere ghost town though it was once a center of subversive influence of the FARC ( “The Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces”), […]