Monitoring organized crime’s soiled cash and illicit operations in Latin America

This text is a part of the “LATAM Focus” sequence by the World Investigative Journalism Community, which tells the tales of reporters from Latin America, detailing their investigations and modern reporting initiatives, in addition to the challenges particular to the area. It’s republished with permission; the authentic is out there on GIJN’s web site. By Santiago Villa.

—

Illicit drug cash is barely a fraction of what Latin America’s multibillion-dollar crime conglomerates deposit in tax havens around the globe. Unlawful gold mining, unsanctioned logging within the Amazon, human trafficking, authorities corruption, and extortion create worthwhile revenues for organizations whose monetary pursuits, clients, and accomplices span the globe.

A panel of knowledgeable journalists in monitoring organized crime’s funds and operations, together with Bianca Padró Ocasio who works with Ojo Público, the Peru-based Latin American investigative journalism platform; Joseph Poliszuk from Armando.information, one of many few media retailers specializing in investigative journalism about Venezuela; Lilia Saúl from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Mission (OCCRP); and Luiz Fernando Toledo, co-founder of Knowledge Fixers, shared strategies, instruments, and safety protocols to research organized crime throughout GIJN’s webinar Investigating Latin America’s World Attain of Illicit Actions, moderated by Connectas founder and director Carlos Eduardo Huertas.

Greatest observe to deal with organized crime: Collaboration

Formidable, transnational organized crime reporting initiatives are often collaborative, involving a number of newsrooms from completely different nations. However how do these initiatives start? How will you decide who to collaborate with and take the primary steps towards trust-building?

“The perfect companions are those which can be really enthusiastic about working with you,” stated Toledo. He recommended researching potential collaborators to make sure you can supply one thing that pursuits them and so they have one thing you want, resembling expertise, contacts, sources, or are based mostly in a geographic location of curiosity. “Collaborative journalism is about belief, radical sharing, and availability. If one in every of these items doesn’t exist, there is no such thing as a profitable collaboration,” he added. Poliszuk additionally recommended drafting a doc outlining every associate’s tasks and anticipated useful resource expenditures from the beginning.

The journalists additionally reminded the viewers of some finest practices for shielding civilians’ privateness, resembling being aware of what names to omit when coping with authorized or leaked paperwork. For instance, when engaged on NarcoFiles, an enormous collaborative exposé on organized crime based mostly on greater than seven million emails leaked from Colombia’s Legal professional Basic’s Workplace, all retailers agreed to publish solely names and knowledge of individuals already convicted or sentenced. “A very powerful factor we should keep in mind as investigative journalists is we’re not authorities, the police, or prosecutors,” stated Saúl, explaining that NarcoFiles’ goal was to indicate the dimensions and transnational prevalence of Latin American organized crime.

Dissecting organized crime by conventional reporting

Regardless of the advances in giant language fashions, machine studying, and geolocation software program, investigative journalists nonetheless depend on conventional reporting strategies, resembling turning folks with useful info into whistleblowers. “You need to perceive who the potential whistleblower is and how one can obtain one of the best info from them,” stated Poliszuk. A great way to begin, he beneficial, is by reviewing their social media accounts to know their social circle and connections.

Padró Ocasio stated Ojo Público despatched dozens of FOIA requests throughout their investigation into unlawful gold mining within the Amazon area, largely to mining authorities in Latin American nations within the Amazon basin. “A few of the FOIA responses have been fairly good, particularly in Peru and Brazil, the place they’ve sturdy legal guidelines requiring responses inside 10 days,” she defined. “We requested about investigations on particular firms or native miners, how a lot gear had been seized, which firms have been implicated, and the place they have been based mostly,” she added.

Nevertheless, FOIA responses could also be incomplete or not give the complete image, so they need to be verified by contrasting and triangulating them with college research, surveys, and particular knowledge sources. For instance, Padró Ocasio’s workforce cross-referenced gold exports declared by every nation with knowledge from US and EU customs.

Organized crime and environmental crimes are more and more intertwined. Cartels and armed teams mix the drug commerce with wildlife trafficking, unlawful mining, and unlawful logging. Sections of the Brazilian Amazon have change into felony hubs, making it laborious to know Latin America’s latest globalized buildings with out contemplating this immense rainforest. When investigating environmental crimes in Brazil, Toledo recommended utilizing data-rich web sites just like the Forest Stewardship Council’s (FSC) certification database and the Brazilian Institute of Surroundings and Renewable Pure Sources’ (IBAMA) environmental fines database. Scraping and cross-referencing these might present useful details about the businesses, teams, and people being tracked.

To handle knowledge and figures that may be overwhelming of their scale, Toledo additionally beneficial utilizing ChatGPT to overview your code each time your workforce depends on instruments resembling Python or R.

Staying protected when investigating organized crime

Organized crime was one of many main causes of journalist deaths outdoors of battle in 2023, in response to the Committee to Shield Journalists. Investigating organized crime can result in harassment, hacking, and even assassination makes an attempt.

When reporting in areas with organized crime presence, Padró Ocasio recommends making certain the workforce has dependable and reliable contacts to evaluate the world’s security. “We based mostly a number of our reporting selections on reviews by NGOs investigating unlawful mining and reached out to local people and Indigenous organizations within the hotspots we have been visiting,” Padró Ocasio stated. Saúl detailed OCCRP’s three-pronged strategy to safety throughout NarcoFiles’ collaborative reporting, combining digital, editorial, and bodily/psychological security. All collaborating journalists have been skilled in digital safety protocols, utilizing digital non-public networks (VPN), border gateway protocols (BGP), and the Sign communications platform.

Editorial security was strengthened by organising protocols to deal with delicate info, facilitating authorized opinions and recommendation for all collaborating journalists, and centralizing the venture’s coordination with OCCRP’s Latin America editor, Nathan Jaccard.

A bodily safety committee was established to answer potential threats in the course of the investigation as nicely. Journalists have been urged to report any suspicious actions or direct threats to the committee. They have been additionally suggested to be aware of their emotional well-being, because of attainable publicity to graphic and violent movies within the trove of prosecutor emails acquired by the NarcoFiles leak. Saúl additionally emphasised the significance of all the time letting a colleague know the place you’ll be and which sources you propose on assembly.

Lastly, for younger journalists wanting to show themselves within the difficult area of organized crime reporting, the veterans provided ideas: learn to learn, use, and grasp spreadsheets, know learn how to entry public data, observe what you study whereas engaged on a venture, look deeper into firms which can be lively on the web and social media, learn impartial information retailers, and attend related conferences. “There’s all the time one thing new to study,” Toledo stated.