Hi Reddit, it's the reporting team from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) here. We're the crew behind some of the biggest global investigations in journalism, including the Panama Papers and FinCEN Files. Last week we published our latest - and largest - investigation to date: the Pandora Papers.

Based on a leak of more than 11.9 million files, it exposed the offshore holdings of hundreds of politicians, as well as criminals, celebrities and the uber rich. We worked with more than 600 journalists from 150 media outlets on this investigation (our biggest ever!), including The Washington Post (/u/washingtonpost), BBC, and more.

ICIJ has been investigating tax havens and financial secrecy for a decade now, working on massive leaked datasets with teams of hundreds of journalists at a time. Today we're also lucky to have with us our colleagues from The Washington Post who co-reported our Pandora Papers stories.

Joining today's AMA — From /u/ICIJ we have reporters Scilla Alecci and Will Fitzgibbon and data and research gurus Emilia Díaz-Struck and Augie Armendariz (with an occasional assist from the digital team, Hamish Boland-Rudder and Asraa Mustufa). From /u/washingtonpost we have reporters Debbie Cenziper and Greg Miller.

Here's our proof: https://twitter.com/ICIJorg/status/1447966578293813251

We'll be answering live from 2pm until 3pm.

Ask us anything!

Edit, 3.20pm EDT: We're wrapping up now, but wanted to say a big thanks to everyone for jumping in and asking so many great questions. Sorry we couldn't answer them all! We'll have an FAQ over at ICIJ.org later this week, and will try to make sure to include some of your questions in there. Thanks for following!

Comments: 1097 • Responses: 48  • Date: 

NoStupidShit1609 karma

Why was there a lack of US figures in the papers?

ICIJ268 karma

Thanks very much for your question! We actually looked at it closely. There are different explanations.

We identified more than 700 companies with beneficial owners connected to the U.S. in the Pandora Papers; Americans were also among the top 20 nationalities represented in the data. However at the top, we has Russia, United Kingdom, Argentina, China and Brazil with the largest representation of beneficial owners.

When it comes to creating offshore companies, foundations and trusts, parties from different parts of the world and with different needs select different providers and jurisdictions for their shell companies.Pandora Papers documents cover a large number of providers, but obviously not all, or even most, of them, and many jurisdictions are not represented in the data.In previous ICIJ investigations, including 2017’s Paradise Papers, the leak came from a prestigious law firm with a larger corporate practice, Appleby. As a result, the data included more documents about multinationals. Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, which are popular havens for corporations, were among the jurisdictions with a large presence in that leak.

In the Paradise Papers, U.S. citizens had a larger relative presence.

You can find more info about the data here: https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/about-pandora-papers-leak-dataset/

Emilia, ICIJ

TheSummerCat1127 karma

How do you choose the newspapers with whom you share the data?

In Ecuador the newspaper in charge has barely covered the news about the president being evading taxes for more than 30 years and instead focus on a Spanish singer.

Would it be possible to share it with another trusted news media that isn’t owned by a family that is very close to the current president? Like DW_Spanish? Or any other?

ICIJ639 karma

ICIJ is has a global network of reporters and media organizations who work together to investigate the most important stories in the world.

For every project, we explore how countries are represented in the data and start inviting journalists who have worked with us on previous investigations, who are ICIJ members or other investigative journalists who have been recommended to us.

The key is not that they are only great journalists, but also that they are generous and are willing to share with all the other journalists throughout the investigation. Journalists who partner with ICIJ in our projects are know for their professionalism, accuracy, high ethical standards, investigative skills as well as generosity working with other colleagues, which is a powerful formula.

Emilia, ICIJ

TheSummerCat132 karma

Thank you for your answer.

Are you willing to accept new journalists to share with them the data of a specific country? Or is the process closed to only the ones that have previously worked with you?

I don’t mean to questions the journalists that have been selected from Ecuador, but the news journal that covers them and how they can limit what they publish or not.

It’s been very frustrating not getting more details about this when the person involved is the president of the country.

Thank you once again.

ICIJ195 karma

Journalists from around the world who are interested in partnering with us in the future can email us to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

We welcome new offers of collaboration and are vetting the requests. However, due to limited resources and the high cost of onboarding new partners, we will not be able to accept all offers. We prioritise journalists with a proven record of high-quality investigations and a demonstrated desire to collaborate, and those hailing from regions where we haven’t worked before.

3ducate360 karma

Is there a searchable database of the details for those who are actually not redacted out ?

ICIJ353 karma

Hi! ICIJ plans to incorporate data from the Pandora Papers into our existing Offshore Leaks database in the coming months. We are also publishing relevant documents, with private information redacted, from the leaked files alongside as many of our stories as possible.As an investigative journalism organization, we report stories that are in the public interest. Therefore ICIJ won’t release personal data en masse but will continue to explore the full data with our media partners.

Offshore Leaks database: https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/Subscribe to receive updates on when the data will be available: https://www.icij.org/newsletter/
- Asraa, ICIJ

rvitqr99 karma

As someone interested in open source, tech, databases, infrastructure, etc., I've been really inspired by the community-developed digital tooling for working with these kinds of huge datasets and 'digital citizen journalism' (for lack of a better term). Some examples that come to mind offhand are graph database utilities for the panama papers, community work on Twitter identifying Jan 6 individuals and connections between them, and google docs for organizing or otherwise curating information for protest groups.

As someone who can build things, what kinds of tools or resources would make a difference to organizations like ICIJ? Are you aware of any grant or funding mechanisms for developing those sorts of things? What are your thoughts in general on crowdsourcing information?

Thank you, in so many ways for what you do!

Edit: I'm just taking a look at the database browser and visualizations - very cool and exactly the kind of thing I'd love to see more of in the world :D But I also know how hard it is to set those kinds of things up not to mention get the data curated. Edit2: fix markdown

ICIJ95 karma

Thanks very much for your comment! Our tech team has been developing Datashare, which is Open Source and can be used locally: https://datashare.icij.org/

It's a central tool for our projects.

We also used Neo4J and Linkurious on this project, and what we will incorporate to the Offshore Leaks (https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/) database will also be using these.

We usually deal with large quantities of data, so if you are working on any tool that you think can help us with the work we do as part of our data processing or analysis work, you can contact us via [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]).

If you have recommendations about grants we should apply to, we welcome them too. There are some focused on tech that we have applied in the past, and you can get more info in our website. Thanks very much for your support!

Emilia, ICIJ

Mizghetti299 karma

Do any of you fear for your lives?

ICIJ571 karma

Most of us on this AMA have the relative protection of working from within the United States where press freedom is generally solid. Of course, many of our partners are not as lucky. There were journalists in some countries who could not participate in the project because of the power of politicians involved. In other countries, journalists received threats of lawsuits and even death threats. In many cases, we as a collaborative unit were still able to report on the topics. That's the power of collaboration. One powerful politician or billionaire might think that he/she/they can silence one reporter - but it's a lot harder to silence 600 reporters. - Will, ICIJ

codece232 karma

How prominent was the use of cryptocurrencies to facilitate these transactions?

ICIJ357 karma

Not very! Dozens of journalists were keen to see what Pandora Papers said about crypto. Who doesn't want to break a sexy story like that? Alas, this set of documents didn't have the goods. Will/ICIJ

elmo85192 karma

1.a
How big is this catch in the offshore business? Isn't this just scratching the surface?

1.b
Do you expect more of this in the future, maybe on even larger scale?

2..
Are you supported by politicians to continue?

I also want to say a big thank you for the work done. Transparency in the actions of the rich and powerful should be a cornerstone of democracy in a better world.

ICIJ238 karma

Great questions!

1.a) It's bigger - and more expansive - than anything we've worked with before. The fact that we have data from 14 different offshore providers/financial firms has really opened up our ability to see patterns across jurisdictions and learn more than ever about who is using offshore and how they're using it (and see that "offshore" is really a misnomer - this is happening everywhere!). But in the grand scheme of things, trillions of dollars flows through this shadowy economy, and we're only just scratching the surface, which leads me to....

1.b) We'd love to see more. Got a tip for us? Hit us up: https://www.icij.org/leak

  1. It really depends on the country. In some places, politicians are quick to laud our partners and act on their reporting by introducing important reforms. In other places, politicians go on the offensive against our partners, sometimes in a very serious, dangerous way. And whichever way you look at it, politicians are gonna politic, so we don't ever let them interfere in our work. We work entirely independently, and only work with trusted reporters - not politicians, not advocacy groups.

Thanks for your kind words! And thanks for following our work.

-Hamish

kurisu93118 karma

Do you feel the newspapers from other countries (that aren’t English speaker) have covered the news?

I mean it’s sinking very powerful people, in many cases like Chile and Ecuador is sinking the presidents of the country who are both incredibly wealthy.

ICIJ101 karma

We've been lucky enough to work with 150 media outlets from more than 110 countries on this investigation, publishing in dozens of languages - as an English-only speaker, I'm both humbled by our partners' abilities to collaborate so effectively across language barriers and also disappointed that I don't get to fully appreciate their amazing stories in multiple languages.

You can find links to their coverage here: https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/about-pandora-papers-investigation/

In the next few days/week, we'll also begin collecting links to our partners' main Pandora Papers stories, and will publish a list on our website so you can easily find them all.

-Hamish

TheSummerCat38 karma

Thank you so much for your answer. But this is exactly what I mean. In Ecuador one of the journalists members from ICIJ openly defends the president https://i.imgur.com/G1Vmg8w.jpg being even against congress opening an investigation.

How can we expect that they will publish/cover objectively the tax evasion of the same person they are so fond of?

ICIJ11 karma

In Ecuador we worked with El Universo for our Pandora Papers coverage - who were joined by partners from all over the region (one of the strengths of collaboration is we have many eyes on every story!) investigating stories on Ecuador and, in particular, the offshore holdings linked to President Lasso (this story was also featured in ICIJ's Power Players feature). Lasso is now under investigation in Ecuador.

-Hamish

BestVersionOfMe78116 karma

I applaud you for the massive work done!

What can us citizens (EU here) do to stop these blatant enrichments whilst no one seems to care? It’s been rather quiet after Panama Papers weee released until now with the Pandora Papers. I’d hate for the storm to get quiet again in a while as the world simply seems to move on

ICIJ136 karma

Thank you! EU Commissioner Gentiloni recently said they should come up with transparency rules for shell companies by the end of this year. And just like you, we're watching what they actually do or propose. We don't expect this to change over night, but we are like that famous little drop that keeps falling tiktiktik... :) -- Scilla/ICIJ

Privatewanker-1 karma

First of all you need to understand that very few people in developed countries still use offshore companies for illicit activities. Just look at the articles published so far. It concerns almost only Russians, Azerbaijan, pakistan etc. Regulations in EU are extremely tight. It is still easy to incorporate a BVI company but you will have a very very hard time finding a bank willing to open an account for your company without reporting it to your domestic tax authority.

Regulation is the main differentiation between developing and developed countries.

Look up CRS if you are interested how it works.

ICIJ5 karma

Except that this is not always true. See what happens in Switzerland, for example.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/switzerland-fidinam-wealth-management-money-laundering/

Plus, even if some users may be from developing countries, let's not forget that the enablers are in London, New York, Geneva etc etc. We cannot look at one side of the system (the user) without taking into account the other cogs of the wheel.-- Scilla/ICIJ

markusrg113 karma

Is there anything that a programmer like myself can do to help a huge journalism project like this, now and in the future? I feel like my skills could be put to good use for aiding something as important as this. I’m guessing you already have that kind of tech supporting your efforts, with all that data, but I’m curious how it works.

ICIJ143 karma

Great question! You're always welcome to apply for a job at ICIJ when one is open :) I would also encourage you to think about countries and newsrooms that you could help pro bono. I work with many newsrooms, especially in West and Central Africa, that are in desperate need of websites. Some of our partners, including in Cote d'Ivoire, don't even have a website. Imagine if you could say, "I helped build the website of an ICIJ media partner" on our next investigation! Write to ICIJ and ask for me if you're interested - Will

ICIJ67 karma

Absolutely. We have a whole tech team that Emilia's data and research team work very closely with at ICIJ. The document tool they've built for us is an open source project you can contribute to.

https://datashare.icij.org/

There's also a python utility called Tarentula that our tech team maintains that makes it easy for people like me to query and retrieve information out of Datashare.

Many other journalists build and maintain tools for parsing information out of PDFs and other tasks that routinely come up. In the last 20 years or so technologists are finding roles in newsrooms around the country, but it's not always obvious how to integrate their skills into the newsroom.

I'm a reporter, but I use python daily to manage and analyze data.

-Augie

BonVivant_6469112 karma

Will the new international agreements on 15% corporate tax rate have an effect on stuff like this, or does it open its own loopholes?

ICIJ149 karma

The proposed 15% global minimum tax rate would apply to corporations that operate across borders, not individuals. Civil society groups have criticized a recent agreement,  pushed by the United States and co-ordinated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, for loopholes that they say pander to tax havens and corporate giants at the expense of poorer nations.More on that here: https://www.icij.org/investigations/paradise-papers/136-countries-agree-to-global-minimum-tax-for-corporations-in-historic-oecd-deal/
- Asraa, ICIJ

T_DeadPOOL65 karma

How come nothing ever fucking happens when these are put out?

ICIJ66 karma

Ohhh you're touching on a sore point here u/T_DeadPOOL! We've heard this over and over since we published the Panama Papers back in 2016 - and our answer is always the same. A LOT has happened! Just to hark back to Panama Papers for a second, we've seen governments recoup more than $1.3 billion in lost revenue from tax dodgers, as well as multiple legislative changes around the world - not to mention the growing momentum behind important transparency measures like beneficial ownership registers. Oh and a few country leaders lost their jobs (one ended up with a prison sentence). LOTS!

For the Pandora Papers, we've already seen US lawmakers jump on the issue and pitch new legislation (the Enablers Act), as well as official investigations announced in a number of countries. And that's just in the first week. Authorities, governments, regulators tend to move a little slower than the news cycle, so these things will take time - but they will happen!

We'll be following all the developments as much as we can (although to be honest, SO much happens that it can be hard to keep up). But a lot of these developments are a little less "sexy" in the world of news, so you might not see them at the top of the bulletin or plastered on the front page. If you follow ICIJ or any of the great reporters here in this AMA, I guarantee you'll be seeing things happening in the wake of this investigation.

-Hamish

Edit: I've cross-linked this as the answer to a few questions, so also just adding a link to the Pandora Papers impact on ICIJ's website: https://www.icij.org/tags/pandora-papers/impact/

mjiggidy53 karma

[deleted]

ICIJ157 karma

Perhaps speaking more personally here than on behalf of ICIJ, but I hope folks are getting a sense of the inequality and unfairness perpetuated by this whole parallel financial world. These stories really expose the fact that there are two sets of rules - one for the uber wealthy and powerful, and another for the rest of us.

-Hamish

kiddo979752 karma

Will the raw files/data behind this be published? When? Where?

ICIJ65 karma

While we've gone through the files with a team of 600+ reporters looking for stories in the public interest, a lot of these files relate to personal or private matters or accounts. ICIJ won’t release personal data en masse.

But we will continue to explore the full data with our partners, and keep looking for stories. We also try to publish relevant documents from the leaked files alongside as many of our stories as possible. And our Power Players feature includes data and details about the use of companies in secrecy jurisdictions by more than 50 politicians, including all 35 current and former country leaders. ICIJ also plans to incorporate corporation ownership data from the Pandora Papers into our existing [Offshore Leaks database](https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/) in the coming months - stay tuned for more!

-Hamish

schnarf9999943 karma

How have the structures and entities that are used to hide assets changed since the Panama Papers, Lux Leaks, and Paradise Papers? To the extent that there has been some reform to curtail the use and abuse of certain mechanisms to hide assets from tax collectors (bearer shares come to mind as an instrument that has been curtailed by some jurisdictions), do you see new mechanisms, structures and entities popping up?

ICIJ50 karma

Totally. The offshore world is full of fancy lawyers and accountants whose job is to come up with the latest ways to obscure assets. Many experts tell us that trusts and even things like New Hampshire foundations are increasingly popular. We also see interest in new jurisdictions, like the United Arab Emirates. Smaller tax havens like the BVI and Jersey have had to bend to political will and outrage. But strategically and politically important nations, like the UAE and the US, can largely continue to make their own rules - and attract whomever they want. The Pandora Papers show that UBO registries in the BVI, for example, did have a dissuasive effect of some people choosing to move to different tax havens to avoid having to disclose their names to BVI authorities. Of course, if more of that happens, eventually the list of places to go with shrink even further - Will/ICIJ

fujidust37 karma

What’s the primary difference between your investigative findings here and that of the so called Panama papers?

ICIJ100 karma

Size, scale, scope. The Panama Papers investigation was based on a leak of documents from a single offshore services provider: Mossack Fonseca, headquartered in Panama. The Pandora Papers is based on files from 14 different offshore providers based all over the world — from the Caribbean to the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea
(More on those firms here: https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/secrecy-brokers/)
The Pandora Papers include data on more than 27,000 companies and 29,000 so-called ultimate beneficial owners — the real owners of shell companies — or more than twice the number of beneficial owners identified in the Panama Papers. The Pandora Papers also connected offshore activity to more than twice as many politicians and public officials as did the Panama Papers.
~ Asraa, ICIJ

Burger_King_PR_Team31 karma

[deleted]

ICIJ58 karma

Hi, ICIJ (which is based in Washington) has not received threats luckily but some of our partners in other countries have. Before and after publication. Even though we clarify that the use of shell companies is not always associated with crimes, some powerful people don't appreciate being held accountable or told to be more transparent. Some of them didn't respond to our partners' comment requests and then used social media channels to mount a smear campaign. Scilla/ICIJ

Conan77626 karma

What precautions did you take so you won't end up like Julian Assange? Did you get preclearance from any Intel agencies before publication?

ICIJ34 karma

ICIJ doesn't work with government agencies. -- Scilla/ICIJ

partyinplatypus21 karma

Was the data legally obtained? If not, what moral complications did that cause for the journalists?

ICIJ51 karma

The data was obtained legally by ICIJ. ICIJ does not comment on its sources. ICIJ did not pay for the data and no conditions were attached to it being shared. ICIJ does perform rigorous verification and cross-checking of data to ensure its authenticity and verifies each and every fact published in all our stories.

-Hamish

lurklurklurky21 karma

What do you hope the impact of your journalism will be?

ICIJ33 karma

We expose the corruption, injustice and wrongdoing so that the world can make it right. We'll be following any and all developments that result from our reporting.

-Hamish

SomeFreeTime18 karma

When the Panama papers released one of the journalists involved were victim to a carbomb. Do you think reactionary violence by these billionaires was ever effective at silencing journalism and was it a factor during the release of the Pandora papers?

ICIJ28 karma

After the horrific murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta in 2017, a team of journalists came together to ensure the violence would not stop her stories from being told. We're seeing similar patterns around the world, where journalists are standing together and using the strength of collaboration to push back against intimidation and violence. It shouldn't have to come to this - and it doesn't always work (a number of reporters had to drop out of the Pandora Papers due to threats or fear of retaliation). But I think we were all heartened to see the Nobel Peace Prize this year go to two crusading, courageous journalists standing up for press freedom in very challenging situations.

-Hamish

9mac18 karma

What would you like to see come from the release of the Pandora Papers? As a regular citizen living under a clearly corrupt system, I'm at a loss for what can even be done.

ICIJ27 karma

There's still room to improve in terms of transparency. Countries could have corporate registries that are publicly available and tell you who owns what. I was also surprised to see how vague rules around asset disclosure for politicians are in many places. Those are important to establish what a public official should or should not do. -- Scilla/icij

PGE123416 karma

Have the underlying documents from the Pandora Papers leak been shared beyond individual journalists who are members of the ICIJ? If so, to whom?

ICIJ24 karma

ICIJ only works with journalists - we have not shared any document with people/institutions outside the reporting team. Scilla/ICIJ

PGE12345 karma

Thank you - by reporting team, do you mean individual members of the ICIJ?

ICIJ9 karma

The reporting team includes our journalism partners all around the world. -Asraa, ICIJ

redderrida15 karma

How can I support your work? Is there a foundation I could donate to?

ICIJ21 karma

Yes! Thanks very much for asking. You can read more about how you can support ICIJ here: https://checkout.fundjournalism.org/memberform?org_id=icij&installmentPeriod=monthly&amount=10&campaign=701f4000001A4jW

Thanks in advance for your support!

Emilia, ICIJ

choi_choi_13 karma

What is the process like for fact-checking?

ICIJ22 karma

Rigorous! ICIJ also had five fact checkers on our Pandora Papers' stories. It's crucial that we get this stuff right given the seriousness of the information and the wide reach that the stories will have. ICIJ's fact checkers are among our most prized assets! Every word is checked. I once was told I couldn't call a building "red" because it could arguably be russet! Will F.

ICIJ6 karma

ICIJ has a rigorous fact-checking process for the stories as well as for the data analysis we do. In the case of the data we cross-reference against public records and also have two to three rounds of fact-checking for every analysis we do!

For the politicians, for example, we confirmed that the DOB in the files matched with the ones in the public records and that there were enough elements to confirm that it was the same person. We also confirmed that there was a company attached to them. It went through two rounds of fact-checking, and was closed in a third round before doing the full analysis that showed more than 330 politicians from more than 90 countries in the Pandora Papers.

Emilia, ICIJ

ExpressImpression42512 karma

Why us there no info coming out regarding America? All other countries but nothing on the who's who in the USA.

functionoverform11 karma

Do you really believe that any meaningful change is likely to come from these revelations?

Privatewanker1 karma

Do you really expect people like Putin or the King of Jordan to step down/get arrested?

ICIJ15 karma

No, we want that their citizens -- and the foreign institutions/actors who finance them -- know what's going on. We are here to inform not to prosecute. That's a different job. Scilla/ICIJ

Electro_gear9 karma

Have you avoided reporting on certain individuals or financial institutions because of their status or track record? I’m thinking maybe certain big players in the US stock market…

ICIJ14 karma

Nope! We investigate high profile individuals and major financial institutions all the time. ~ Asraa, ICIJ

iambatmanjoe9 karma

Are there any mainstream media that take you seriously or just gloss over your hard work?

ICIJ22 karma

We've got at /u/washingtonpost with us here today, if they count! We work with media big and small from all over, and are lucky to have excellent working relationships with some major international news outlets like the BBC and the Guardian, as well as smaller nonprofits like Newstapa in South Korea and Ink in Botswana, just to name a couple.

-Hamish

Kinda_C7 karma

Given that you had to search millions of documents, how did you manage/track the relevant data to the individuals/companies you were investigating?

ICIJ9 karma

Kinda_C

The ICIJ model is all about collaboration. We had 600 journalists going through the data and posting their findings to our communication platform. It's rare to get reporters to openly share story leads and ideas like this. But it's an extremely powerful model when everyone works together. We also are able to run batch searches of the data using various lists of names like sanctioned people and organizations, politician names, Forbes billionaires, etc to generate leads. -Augie

dharmaday7 karma

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists: Thank you for everything you are doing! The Panama Papers and the Pandora Papers are amazing! How do you get through all the material to the gems?

ICIJ9 karma

A powerful combination of time, people, data and technology make it happen!

- More than 600 journalists from 117 countries

- Datashare, a tool developed by our tech team, to explore the documents / Global I-Hub, a communication platform

- Data structuring and analysis

- External sources

- Reporting

More details can be found here: https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/about-pandora-papers-leak-dataset/

Thanks!

Emilia, ICIJ

5plus5isnot105 karma

How dangerous was it to reveal? Did you have to do any sort of security?

I can only imagine that doing something like that in my country would make you a target for an accident.

lurklurklurky4 karma

What will you be doing next?

ICIJ9 karma

There's more Pandora Papers investigations to come! Sign up for ICIJ's weekly newsletter if you want to see our new stories in your inbox. https://www.icij.org/newsletter
- Asraa, ICIJ

tantamounttotutting4 karma

Which (if any) are the possible legitimate uses of these offshore companies? Could you possibly be exposing people that are protecting their assets from or financing opposition to corrupt/dictatorial regimes?

ICIJ7 karma

There are definitely legitimate uses for some of these companies. We're careful to report out all the facts in our stories, and make sure we allow the people named in our stories ample time to respond to our findings - and for us to include their responses in our stories - before we publish.

-Hamish

Bill_the_Bastard3 karma

What keeps you up at night?

ICIJ10 karma

Doing everything we can to ensure that our reporting is accurate, fair, and thorough. -Asraa, ICIJ

ezgoes3 karma

Hi there. Thank you for everything you’ve done. My main question is: what should happen now? Law change, criminal prosecution?

Will anything change? Ever? From an optimistic fan.

ICIJ5 karma

I love the optimistic tone in this reply!! Our answer to a less-optimistically framed question might actually help answer this: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/q6rdvz/we_are_the_journalists_behind_the_biggest/hgdp7g0/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

-Hamish

tuscabam3 karma

Do you think any of these elites will see any repercussions?

PGE12343 karma

What was the process for sharing information regarding particular findings from the ICIJ's Pandora Papers investigation with particular media outlets?

ICIJ6 karma

Thanks for asking! There are some central tools that are part of our projects, and were central to the Pandora Papers:

We share the records through a tool developed by our tech team called Datashare. It's very powerful as it OCRs the files and allows us to perform advanced searches, and do batch searches, for example.

We also communicate through a platform called the Global I-Hub (based on Open Source software), which is like a social network that allows us to communicate securely.

Both tools include an encryption component and allow us to share an communicate securely.

Emilia, ICIJ

deathlord90001 karma

What are your favorite kind of tacos?

ICIJ2 karma

depends on who's making them but in general carne asada for me -Augie

Urbanviking11 karma

How does this compare to the Panama Papers?

ICIJ2 karma

Answered a similar question above. Here's the answer again:
Size, scale, scope. The Panama Papers investigation was based on a leak of documents from a single offshore services provider: Mossack Fonseca, headquartered in Panama. The Pandora Papers is based on files from 14 different offshore providers based all over the world — from the Caribbean to the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea
(More on those firms here: https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/secrecy-brokers/)
The Pandora Papers include data on more than 27,000 companies and 29,000 so-called ultimate beneficial owners — the real owners of shell companies — or more than twice the number of beneficial owners identified in the Panama Papers. The Pandora Papers also connected offshore activity to more than twice as many politicians and public officials as did the Panama Papers.
~ Asraa, ICIJ