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Investigate Europe

Cross-border journalism cooperative holding the powerful to account in Europe Our investigations deal with key issues related to major changes in Europe.
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Coming from France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal and Great Britain, we are nine experienced reporters.

02/12/2025

“Europe is obviously ignoring its landfill crisis.”
— MEP Jutta Paulus

Toxic Ground: our new investigation with Watershed Investigations shows why this warning matters.

Across the continent, thousands of old landfills and waste sites sit in places where floods, coastal erosion and polluted groundwater could turn forgotten waste into an active threat — especially as climate change gathers pace.

We mapped more than 60,000 sites — but this is only the tip of the iceberg.

🔗 Read what we uncovered and why it matters: link in bio

Supported by .

02/12/2025

🚨 Today, Investigate Europe and Watershed Investigations publish Toxic Ground: the largest-ever landfill and waste site mapping project. Using FOI data, government records, and public sources, we identified and located over 60,000 sites across Europe.

Most of these sites were likely built before modern environmental regulations and some are in locations that pose serious risks:

• Almost 30% are in flood-risk areas
• 3,000+ lie within protected conservation sites
• Nearly 10,000 are located in drinking-water zones
• Hundreds sit close to coasts, making dangerous erosion possible

This story is the first release from Toxic Ground. It is being published in collaboration with media partners across Europe, including Arte, Altreconomia, EUobserver, The Guardian, InfoLibre, ITV News, The Journal Investigates, Reporterre, Reporters United, and Visão.

The investigation has been supported by Journalism Fund.

🔗 Read Toxic Ground: https://www.investigate-europe.eu/posts/europes-toxic-landfill-crisis-exposed-in-groundbreaking-mapping-project

25/11/2025

Argan oil has travelled a long way — from a treasured Berber oil to a global commodity. Once a little-known cooking and cosmetic ingredient, this “liquid gold” now appears in everything from luxury skincare to cooking oil on supermarket shelves.

This sudden boom for the sought-after oil has had mixed results for the people whose traditional method of extracting the oil, and their knowledge of the tree, has been recognised by UNESCO for its cultural value.

Traditional, small-scale and women-led cooperatives, who largely benefited in the early days of the argan boom, now find themselves losing ground to a growing industrial supply chain dominated by big companies. Investigate Europe travelled to Morocco’s Sous Valley, where the argan tree grows, to discover how climate change, drought and over-harvesting have put the tree and local livelihoods at risk.

Read our new article published with L’Internazionale in Italy and The Ecologist in the UK, to find out who really benefits from the argan economy — and who’s being left behind.

This investigation was supported by Journalismfund Europe. Reporting by Juliet Ferguson.

🔗 Read the investigation and browse the photo gallery via the link in our bio.

18/11/2025

Across Europe, crypto and digital trading firms are rushing to partner with some of the continent’s most well-known football clubs.

Our investigation documents how these companies – including some flagged by financial regulators or lacking licences – now appear on shirts, training kits and stadium billboards across Europe.

In the Premier League, 70% of clubs have at least one such sponsor this season. In La Liga, Serie A and the Bundesliga, the figure is around three in 10. The deals come as online investing surges in popularity and betting sponsorships face increasing restrictions.

Some partners, including those linked to Manchester City, Newcastle United, Inter and Atlético Madrid, operate in markets where they are not locally registered, yet their platforms remain accessible to fans.

Swipe through the carousel for key findings from the investigation.

📖 Read the full story on our website – link in bio.

Published with The Observer, Altreconomia, InfoLibre and Público.

14/11/2025

🚨 Rogue “finfluencers” push risky investments to young followers

Flashy lifestyles, incredible get-rich-quick investments and millionaires in their early twenties; you may already be acquainted with the latest financial influencers - finfluencers. Investigate Europe’s latest investigation, part of the Scam Europe series, dives into the dangers that young people in particular are exposed to when facing this online trend:

🔸️Unlicensed de-facto financial advisors

🔸️Links leading to unregulated brokers and crypto exchange platforms

🔸️Subscription-based “educational” services tied to risky investments

🔸️Little to no recourse for followers if brokers go bust

https://www.investigate-europe.eu/posts/the-rogue-finfluencers-pushing-risky-investments-to-young-followers

12/11/2025

⚽️ Revealed: Fans at risk as crypto and trading sponsors flood European football

Unregulated crypto and trading firms — some flagged by authorities for posing risks to consumers — are increasingly sponsoring football clubs across Europe.

“Football clubs are seen as brands with kudos and these companies want to piggyback off that,” says football finance expert Kieran Maguire from the University of Liverpool. “Crypto investing is a very speculative market — it’s really just gambling with a small ‘G’.”

Our cross-border investigation found:
🔹 Over one-third of clubs in Europe’s top five leagues have an investment sponsor this season.
🔹 Many are partnered with firms lacking licences to operate in Europe.
🔹 The Premier League leads the trend — 70% of its clubs have at least one crypto or trading sponsor.
🔹 Some companies have been flagged by regulators, including the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority.

Published with The Observer, Altreconomia and Público, this story is part of our Scam Europe series, supported by .

📖 Read the full investigation here: https://www.investigate-europe.eu/posts/revealed-fans-at-risk-as-crypto-and-trading-sponsors-flood-european-football

17/10/2025

Oil giant Perenco to face court over pollution in DR Congo

Three years after our joint investigation exposed repeated oil leaks, water contamination, and rising illnesses in the Democratic Republic of Congo, French-British oil company Perenco is being taken to court in Paris for environmental damages.

This case, heard by a new court chamber focused on corporate social and environmental responsibility, could see the company forced to pay reparations to affected communities.

Our reporting with .ngo and the Environmental Investigative Forum revealed 167 pollution incidents linked to Perenco’s operations — including in protected areas.

Despite Perenco’s denials, a recent Congolese parliamentary report seen by Investigate Europe found heavy pollution, infertile soil, and serious health impacts among residents.

👉 Read the full investigation and explore related articles on our website—https://www.investigate-europe.eu/posts/perenco-corporate-responsibility-trial

16/10/2025

Uncovered: Investment scammers slip through cracks in EU Big Tech law

Millions across Europe are falling victim to AI-powered scams. Using deepfakes, voice cloning, fake news, and hacked celebrity accounts, criminals create convincing traps disguised as financial advice.

“The rise has been dramatic,” says Andre Hvoslef-Eide, a prosecutor in Norway. “We’re seeing nearly 1,000 reports of digital financial crime every week — far more than we can realistically investigate.”

The financial impact is huge:
🇮🇪 Ireland has lost over €360 million since 2021, including €100 million tied to fake investments.
🇮🇹 Italy lost €147 million to fraudulent online trading in 2024.
🇵🇹 Portugal has opened more than 3,000 crypto scam investigations in two years.

These schemes spread through paid ads on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Despite the EU’s Digital Services Act and “trusted flaggers” meant to stop harmful content, platforms struggle to keep up — and often fail to act.

This is part of the Scam Europe series by Investigate Europe and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.

Read the full story on our website and via our media partners: The Irish Times, DER STANDARD, EUobserver, netzpolitik.org and Público.

🔗 https://www.investigate-europe.eu/posts/investment-scammers-slip-through-cracks-in-eu-big-tech-law

10/10/2025

Our investigation Deadly Prices: How Big Pharma feeds inequality in Europe has won the IJ4EU Impact Award.

This project uncovered how hidden pricing systems allow pharmaceutical companies to set vastly different prices for the same medicines across Europe — leaving some patients without access to essential treatments.

Across six EU countries, one in four critical medicines is unavailable. Meanwhile, 15 of the world’s biggest pharma firms operate over 1,300 subsidiaries in tax havens, earning more than €580 billion in profits over five years.

Swipe through to see what we found.

Read the full investigation at investigate-europe.eu.

30/09/2025

⚠️ Scam Europe – A new cross-border investigation

Europeans lost €4 billion to online investment scams last year — and with AI ads, deepfakes, and fake trading platforms, fraudsters are evolving faster than regulators.

Investigate Europe has teamed up with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (Birn) and media partners across Europe to launch Scam Europe, a series uncovering how these crimes spread and who is behind them.

Our first findings reveal a €250 million fraud network in Belgrade that targeted 70,000 victims across Europe, Canada & Australia, using fake ads, cloned websites, and bogus partnerships to appear legitimate. Victims lost everything from small savings to seven-digit sums, while law enforcement struggles to keep up.

This is just the first part of Scam Europe — over the coming weeks, we’ll reveal how fraudsters exploit technology, how different countries are responding, and the human stories behind the scams.

🔎 Read part one of the series here: https://www.investigate-europe.eu/posts/behind-the-scam-how-an-alleged-criminal-network-set-a-trap-for-thousands-of-europeans-to-fall-for-fake-investments-and-raked-in-millions

27/09/2025

🏆 Great news! We’ve been awarded the IJ4EU Impact Award by the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom for our investigation, Deadly Prices.

The impact of this investigation exceeded our expectations, made possible by eight months of dedicated work by colleagues across Europe. Deadly Prices uncovered Europe’s hidden medicine pricing system, exposing a world of opaque deals and unequal access. The wider investigation unravelled the secretive practices of Europe's pharmaceutical industry, and exposed the real-world consequences of Big Pharma’s decisions on patients and communities.

The investigation underlined what our journalism is really about: producing investigations that resonate throughout Europe and expose the systems and structures that shape the continent today.

Deadly prices was published with media partners across Europe including NDR, WDR, , , , and others.

Congratulations to all the other nominees and winners – what a great achievement to share with you all. Many thanks to the organisers for making it possible ,

📖 Read the full investigation here: https://www.investigate-europe.eu/themes/investigations/deadly-prices-europe-big-pharma-medicines

25/09/2025

Some members of the Investigate Europe team will be in Athens from September 25–27 for UNCOVERED 2025 and the iMEdD International Journalism Forum!

Back for its fifth year, UNCOVERED is joining iMEdD’s annual gathering of journalists for three days of discussions on press freedom, AI, data journalism, climate reporting, and more.

We’re thrilled to be part of such an exciting program and can’t wait to connect with journalists from across Europe and internationally. Will you be there too? 🙋🏽‍♀️ Come say hi — we’d love to exchange ideas and talk about future collaborations!

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