A decade ago, the biggest network for journalists ever assembled set out to investigate a system built to stay hidden.

What they uncovered became the Panama Papers, a sweeping investigation that broke open the secretive world of finance and exposed how the rich and powerful use offshore structures to protect wealth and dodge scrutiny.

The global project broke the model for investigative journalism. It built on years of pioneering collaborative projects by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and exploded into the mainstream as the best new way for journalists to take on systems that no single newsroom could unravel alone.

This series explores how it all came together, drawing on the recollections of the journalists whose reporting sparked a global reckoning over financial secrecy and its consequences. You can read part two here, and check back soon for part three, to be published in the coming days.

The beginning

Bastian Obermayer (Germany)
Then: Investigative reporter, Süddeutsche Zeitung | Now: Co-founder and director, Paper Trail Media

Before the world learned how a Panamanian law firm sold secrecy to prime ministers, billionaires and criminals, a German reporter opened a message that would spark a global reckoning:  “Hello. This is John Doe. Interested in data?”

“I thought, ‘That’s really interesting,’” the reporter, Bastian Obermayer, recalled a decade later. “And then I went back and changed the sheets because my son had thrown up again.”

German journalist Bastian Obermayer at his desk in April 2016. Image: Christof Stache/AFP via Getty Images

Obermayer’s family — everyone but him — had taken ill, and he’d been balancing his work at Süddeutsche Zeitung with trips to the pharmacy.

The sender was cautious and direct. He insisted on encrypted communication, rejected any face-to-face meetings and warned that disclosure of his identity would endanger his life.

Obermayer agreed to the terms and soon had a cache of internal records from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm known for shell companies.

The material would become part of what the world would come to know as the Panama Papers — 11.5 million confidential documents exposing the offshore financial dealings of politicians, billionaires and world leaders.

There were emails, memos, contracts, spreadsheets and more — enough to map the inner workings of a shadow financial system that regulators and journalists had long suspected and occasionally glimpsed but had never seen documented at such scale or in such granular detail.

They were clearly internal documents, and this John Doe said he had access to more — “more than anything you have ever seen,” he’d promised Obermayer.

The next thing Obermayer did was message his friend and Süddeutsche Zeitung colleague Frederik Obermaier (no relation). Obermaier was on paternity leave but agreed to meet.

“I could already hear the excitement from the first sentence,” Obermaier said. He needed no more convincing.

“I was already in,” he recalled. “Pretty soon we realized this is bigger than everything that we have ever done.”

They realized, too, that it was too big to keep to themselves.

Both had worked on previous ICIJ investigations and they knew what its model made possible: cross-border reporting at a scale no single newsroom could pull off.

They knew, too, that this wasn’t only a German story. It was a global one.

“International stuff is the coolest thing you can do in journalism,” Obermayer said. “When we got the documents, we instantly thought this might be our chance to get the ICIJ to do a project we actually started.”.

It wouldn’t be easy.

First, they had to win over their own newsroom, including colleagues who wanted Süddeutsche Zeitung to keep the scoop for itself. But soon enough, their editor Wolfgang Krach was all in.

Then they had to take the project to ICIJ, which had already built a reputation for global investigations about offshore finance. But the bar for embarking on yet another tax-haven project for ICIJ was high, and its resources were already stretched thin across back-to-back investigations into tax avoidance and private banking.

"wp-caption alignnone"> Gerard Ryle being interviewed in April 2016 at ICIJ’s Washington, D.C. offices in the wake of the Panama Papers.

Image: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Ryle returned to his hotel and kept testing hunches, running various names through the new data set.

“For this to be exciting, it needed to be bigger and better than the investigations we’ve done before,” he said.

Early searches uncovered some potential subjects for investigation, including a Russian mafia boss and even the leader of a small European nation. But at that moment, all he had were fragments — names in emails and transactions on spreadsheets, connections that hinted at something enormous.

John Doe began sending more and more documents. Before he was through, he’d send 11.5 million of them — enough to map the hidden architecture of the offshore world.

But having the data isn’t the same thing as building a project.

For that, Ryle would need a team.

He approached The Guardian and the BBC first. Securing major news organizations early would make it easier to bring in others — and he would need dozens, maybe hundreds.

He faced pushback from Guardian editors who thought ICIJ had already done the definitive stories on offshore tax havens and this would be more of the same. But Ryle knew this was different — in scale and in names. This investigation would reach into the highest levels of power.

By the end of their lunch at London’s Frontline Club, The Guardian and the BBC were onboard.

Now he needed an American outlet — one with reach and investigative chops.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/pop-culture-panama-papers-music/

IMPACT How the Panama Papers rocked pop culture Apr 03, 2023

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/20160403-panama-papers-global-overview/

Mossack Fonseca Giant Leak of Offshore Financial Records Exposes Global Array of Crime and Corruption Apr 03, 2016

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/hundreds-of-millions-more-dollars-recouped-by-governments-after-icij-investigations/

IMPACT Hundreds of millions more dollars recouped by governments after ICIJ investigations Apr 03, 2025

Recommended reading IMPACT How the Panama Papers rocked pop culture Apr 03, 2023 Mossack Fonseca Giant Leak of Offshore Financial Records Exposes Global Array of Crime and Corruption Apr 03, 2016 IMPACT Hundreds of millions more dollars recouped by governments after ICIJ investigations Apr 03, 2025

French prosecutors are set to unveil money laundering charges against Dimitry Klyuev, an alleged mastermind of the Magnitsky Affair, the Russian tax fraud that triggered a global anticorruption movement, according to court documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Klyuev, who is believed to live in Russia, will be tried in absentia in a Paris criminal court in a  daylong procedure set for March 30, the same day the charges are unsealed.

ICIJ has obtained both the charging document, filed secretly last summer, and the notice of hearing for the trial.

The documents show that prosecutors last summer secretly charged Klyuev, 58, with “aggravated money laundering” in connection to his role in the Magnitisky case, a $230-million fraudulent tax refund scheme dating to 2007.

The affair is named after Sergey Magnitsky, a Russian tax advisor working for the American investment firm Hermitage Capital who exposed the fraud and died almost two years later after being beaten in a Moscow prison.  Hermitage’s principal, Bill Browder, made the case a global cause celebre and pushed for what became the Sergei L. Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, the landmark 2012 legislation passed by U.S. legislators targeting Russian corruption globally. Klyuev was the alleged mastermind of the scheme, to falsely claim a tax refund using Hermitage subsidiaries and funnel the proceeds through offshore entities, according to U.S. sanctions against Klyuev and others announced in 2014.

The French case stems from Klyuev’s spending of the alleged proceeds of the fraudulent tax refund in France. Prosecutors allege that between 2007 and 2012, Klyuev spent more than $2.4 million, (2.1 million euros) on French soil on luxury goods, including clothing, jewelry and artwork. Investigators say the funds originated from accounts he controlled that received proceeds from the scheme.

is message is especially important, and makes clear that Russian corrupt money is no longer welcome in the West”.

If convicted, Klyuev faces a prison term of up to ten years.

French authorities issued a European arrest warrant for him in March 2025.  Klyuev was charged in August last year but the charges were kept under seal by French authorities on the chance the Klyuev would travel to the country.

According to the filings, Klyuev was involved “in the placement, concealment, or conversion of proceeds directly or indirectly derived from organized fraud committed” against the Russian State and Treasury..

Some proceeds of the scheme were allegedly routed through accounts linked to Klyuev’s Universal Savings Bank before moving offshore, including to entities registered in the British Virgin Islands with accounts at the Cyprus-branch of FBME Bank.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/cyprus-confidential/chelsea-fc-fined-millions-over-secret-payments-under-abramovich-ownership/

IMPACT Chelsea FC fined millions over secret payments under Abramovich ownership Mar 17, 2026

https://www.icij.org/news/2026/01/im-on-the-right-side-of-history-icij-member-roman-anin-stripped-of-his-russian-citizenship/

PRESS FREEDOM ‘I’m on the right side of history’: ICIJ member Roman Anin stripped of his Russian citizenship Jan 22, 2026

https://www.icij.org/investigations/russia-archive/hidden-details-of-putins-private-life-show-his-real-worldview-new-book-claims/

RUSSIA Hidden details of Putin’s private life show his ‘real worldview,’ new book claims Jul 29, 2025

Recommended reading IMPACT Chelsea FC fined millions over secret payments under Abramovich ownership Mar 17, 2026 PRESS FREEDOM ‘I’m on the right side of history’: ICIJ member Roman Anin stripped of his Russian citizenship Jan 22, 2026 RUSSIA Hidden details of Putin’s private life show his ‘real worldview,’ new book claims Jul 29, 2025

Anti-money laundering authorities in Canada have revoked registrations of nearly three dozen cryptocurrency businesses following an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and The Toronto Star.

Last week, Canada’s Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre removed 23 crypto firms from its registry of firms permitted to provide money services in the country. FINTRAC had earlier this month struck registrations of a dozen other crypto companies operating in the country.

The revocations mark a notable uptick in Canadian enforcement actions around money transmitters and an intensifying focus on crypto businesses in particular, according to experts and officials interviewed by the Star.

“This represents a significantly increased pace of action, and our government will maintain this momentum,” Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said in a statement. Champagne vowed to pursue new measures to address risks posed by virtual currency businesses, “which can be used to facilitate money laundering and fraud.”

The actions came after a Star investigation published in November found that dozens of crypto businesses in the Toronto area were not registered with FINTRAC to deal in virtual currencies. Many of these businesses specialize in converting cryptocurrency to physical cash. The Star story, part of ICIJ’s Coin Laundry investigation into dirty money in cryptocurrency, identified a single thoroughfare with 50 businesses advertising crypto services, most of which appeared to be operating unlawfully.

The Star found that two of these operations have used crypto wallets allegedly linked to Iran-backed terror groups.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/coin-laundry/retailers-keep-cashing-in-on-crypto-atms-as-scams-surge/

CRYPTOCURRENCY Retailers keep cashing in on crypto ATMs as scams surge Dec 17, 2025

https://www.icij.org/investigations/coin-laundry/undercover-crypto-transactions-shady-multimillion-dollar-schemes-and-more-coin-laundry-stories-from-icijs-partners/

PARTNER STORIES Undercover crypto transactions, shady multimillion-dollar schemes, and more Coin Laundry stories from ICIJ’s partners Nov 26, 2025

https://www.icij.org/investigations/coin-laundry/crypto-cash-desk-currency-exchange-money-laundering/

FINANCIAL SECRECY From Dubai to Toronto, inside the crypto-to-cash storefronts fueling money laundering’s new frontier Nov 17, 2025

Recommended reading CRYPTOCURRENCY Retailers keep cashing in on crypto ATMs as scams surge Dec 17, 2025 PARTNER STORIES Undercover crypto transactions, shady multimillion-dollar schemes, and more Coin Laundry stories from ICIJ’s partners Nov 26, 2025 FINANCIAL SECRECY From Dubai to Toronto, inside the crypto-to-cash storefronts fueling money laundering’s new frontier Nov 17, 2025