ICIJ awarded Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting on Panama Papers investigations

The Panama Papers investigative journalism exposé has won a Pulitzer Prize in the United States for revealing the use of offshore companies by wealthy individuals to conceal billions of euro in assets.

The team includes Maltese journalist Matthew Caruana Galizia who is the ICIJ’s web applications developer.

New York’s Columbia University announced that the prize for explanatory reporting was awarded to US media outlets, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), McClatchy and the Miami Herald, for the project, “The Panama Papers – The Secrets of Dirty Money.”

The Pulitzer Prize Board lauded the year-long investigation for “using a collaboration of more than 300 reporters on six continents to expose the hidden infrastructure and global scale of offshore tax havens.”

“This honour is a testament to the enterprise and teamwork of our staff and our partners here in the United States and around the world,” Gerard Ryle, ICIJ’s director, said. “We’re honoured that the Pulitzer Board recognised the groundbreaking revelations and worldwide impact that the Panama Papers collaboration produced.

The Panama Papers investigation began with a leak of 11.5 million documents linked to Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca to German journalists Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier, exposing offshore companies linked to more than 140 politicians in more than 50 countries – including 14 current or former world leaders. Former energy minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri, were among those revealed to have companies in Panama.

The investigation also uncovered offshore hideaways tied to mega-banks, corporate bribery scandals, drug kingpins, Syria’s air war on its own citizens and a network of people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin that shuffled as much as $2 billion around the world.