ICIJ

"Banks are huge, wealthy companies that help us move our money for good reasons but they also help bad people move money for bad reasons. Banks are doing a terrible job at stopping bad people move bad money. Also, the people in our government who are meant to get the banks in trouble when the banks screw up aren't being tough enough."

That's just a quick summary! It would still have to be a pretty alert five year-old!!

We also took a stab at it in this video, where you can meet Ivan - our fictitious crime boss. https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/watch-how-money-is-laundered-through-new-york-banks/

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– Will

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

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

I think there's a lot more to do. But, when I take a step back, there's been a hell of a lot of impact and reform, too. Some of those are big changes -- laws in Panama, Germany and elsewhere. But in some countries, it's a change in the fact that now people think more about secretive shell companies and how powerful citizens use them to the disadvantage of others. Will

Hi herdherfer. Let's be honest -- lots of people got away with stashing money offshore. In many countries, no investigations were started because the Big Fish were just too big. But we've seen lots of other countries where hundreds of millions of dollars in total has been recouped and where prosecutions have started.