The Korea Center for Investigative Journalism

04/10/2023

Regarding recent raid on Newstapa, Emilia Diaz-Struck, New Executive Director of Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) said:

"Newstapa has done a tremendous amount of work in doing what accountability journalism, watchdog journalism for South Korea. It's worrying always to see when colleagues in South Korea and other countries receive these kinds of challenges and threats. It's a message that you're sending to those who are practicing the craft."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3LpwtdXlbw&t=40s (ENG)
https://newstapa.org/article/2ja9B (KOR)

Newstapa reporters are just back from the Global Investigative Journalism Conference 2023 (GIJC23) held in Gothenburg, Sweden last week. GIJC23 was the large...

25/10/2021

The investigation was launched two weeks after ’s shell company was unveiled as part of the , reported by the Korea Center for Investigative Journalism(KCIJ)- and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists( )’ cross-border investigation team.

Prosecutors launch an investigation into Samsung chief Lee Jae-yong's shell company and its Swiss account

14/10/2021

According to the Pandora Papers documents, Vice Chairman obtained his BVI shell company Bachury Finance Corp. to hold a bank account in , .

KCIJ-

Samsung chief Lee Jae-yong set up the BVI shell company for a Swiss bank account

14/10/2021

A BVI-based shell company, which belongs to Group de facto chief , was identified from the Pandora Papers data. The company, Bachury Finance Corp., was incorporated in 2008.

KCIJ-

Samsung Lee Jae-yong’s Shell Company Identified for the First Time

14/10/2021

In March 2014, KBS News 9 ran an exclusive report that Chairman bought a luxury villa on Malibu Beach, California, through a company set up in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong company had the same address as SM Entertainment’s Hong Kong office.

Seven years later, in 2021, KCIJ-Newstapa found documents from the Pandora Papers data revealing a connection between this Hong Kong company and Lee Soo-man.

KCIJ-

Lee Soo-man's Purchase of a Malibu Villa (feat. Shell Company)

14/10/2021

The leaked internal files from Hong Kong-based IL SHIN CPA and IL SHIN Corporate Consulting as part of the Pandora Papers project, expose a number of companies owned by or closely related with Chief Producer .

Some of them appear to be tightly linked to Lee, although his name is not shown on their list of shareholders and directors.

KCIJ-

K-Pop Mogul Lee Soo-man's Alleged Connection to Hong Kong Shell Companies

14/10/2021

As part of our Pandora Papers reports, KCIJ-Newstapa analyzed how South Korean financial industry insiders took advantage of offshore and service providers that help managing shell companies there.

Look how they did it and what they ended up with.

KCIJ-

How to Abuse Hong Kong Shell Company: a Korean Businessman's Telltale

14/10/2021

Let us introduce Korean end of results on the in English.

Along with and 150 media outlets around the world, KCIJ- participated in the global investigation for the past year.

The data consists of 11.9 million documents leaked from 14 offshore service providers, including Korean accounting firm Il Shin based in Hong Kong.

Pandora's Box is Open: the Biggest Leak of Tax Haven files

08/06/2021

Based on a complex relationship which structured among , his children and a South Korean national Cheong, Cheong appeared to become a proxy of the former Prime Minister and traded properties overseas.

A person who lends his or her name as an executive or shareholder of a shell company to hide the real owner is called a "proxy."

Courts in the U.K., Hong Kong and Singapore in November last year froze assets of multiple other shell companies connected to Batbold, Cheong and other Korean proxies as well.

KCIJ-Newstapa found that Cheong was a former head of the C&T Mongolia branch.

Cheong was also found in one of the companies from

https://newstapa.org/article/rTZK6?lang=eng

The Korea Center for Investigative Journalism (KCIJ) is the first nonprofit investigative reporting organization in the Republic of Korea.

06/05/2021

In , people are not allowed to use mobile data with smart phones since the military leaders have cut the internet access after the military coup on 1 Feb. But wired Internet networks are still connected, users can use Internet where LANS and Wi-Fi are located.

To broadcast or publish news of the situation on the , reporters and citizens have no choice to go places with wired Internet or Wi-Fi. Access to information is blocked. Furthermore, state-run media is covering the eyes of the people in Myanmar.

3rd story from veteran journo from Myanmar:
Myanmar Coup ③: How media tells stories under coup?
https://newstapa.org/article/F7q4-?lang=eng

The Korea Center for Investigative Journalism (KCIJ) is the first nonprofit investigative reporting organization in the Republic of Korea.

27/04/2021

military is dealing with civil war with ethnic armed groups in borderland. Air strikes and daily fighting and clashes are reported in ethnic Karen, Kachin and Shan States- southeastern, northeastern, and eastern Myanmar.

In Karen State alone, the escalating fighting has forced more than 20,000 to become Internally Displaced Persons( ) fleeing home for safety. Also more than 2,000 fled into Thai soil where they were pushed back.

2nd story from veteran journo from Myanmar:
Myanmar Coup②: Myanmar Conflicts Force Refugees Fleeing Home

The Korea Center for Investigative Journalism (KCIJ) is the first nonprofit investigative reporting organization in the Republic of Korea.

20/04/2021

Situation in bears much semblance to what happened in in May 1980.

publishes special reports written by local journalists- Saw Yan Naing and his colleagues.

Saw Yan Naing is a veteran reporter who has written for The Irrawaddy, BBC Burmese, GIJN - Global Investigative Journalism Network, and more.

Myanmar Coup: What does the future hold for the Burmese people?
https://newstapa.org/article/ggvaj?lang=eng

The Korea Center for Investigative Journalism (KCIJ) is the first nonprofit investigative reporting organization in the Republic of Korea.

07/07/2020

We'd like to introduce KCIJ's new English website: https://newstapa.org/eng

The Korea Center for Investigative Journalism (KCIJ) is the first nonprofit investigative reporting organization in the Republic of Korea.

07/07/2020

08/11/2019

Former UNSG Ban Ki-moon bows courteously to former dictator Chun Doo-hwan, the man responsible for the mass killing of Gwangju citizens in May 1980.

23/08/2019

So you've heard about Steven Soderbergh's movie The Laundromat. But what are Mossack Fonseca and the Panama Papers?

21/06/2019

The “ ” series pursued the investigations of several reporters who faced threats when covering possible environmental damage and other abuses by mining companies. Reporting on environmental issues can cost journalists their jobs, the land they live on and even their lives.

The more journalists cover these issues aggressively, the more they are provoking powerful interests that will retaliate and block access to information.

Forbidden Stories "THEY SILENCED THE JOURNALISTS. THEY WON'T SILENCE THE STORIES."

The “Green Blood” series pursued the investigations of several reporters who faced threats when covering possible environmental damage and other abuses by mining companies. Reporting on environmental issues can cost journalists their jobs, the land they live on and even their lives. The more jou...

21/06/2019

Up to 50 billion tons of sand and gravel are extracted every year worldwide. The inexhaustible need for sand from this rapidly-developing country is the breeding ground for illegal activities by what has come to be known as the “ .”

In , reporters trying to expose the sand mafias that devour the Indian coasts keep coming constantly under threat.

The third and last story of Project by Forbidden Stories.

Up to 50 billion metric tons of sand and gravel are extracted every year worldwide.The inexhaustible need for sand from this rapidly-developing country is the breeding ground for illegal activities by what has come to be known as the “sand mafias.”

20/06/2019

A group of fishermen from an indigenous community in demanded to know more about the environmental impact of a mine established on their ancestral land. One of them was killed, and a local reporter was criminalized for covering the story.

40 reporters around the world joined Forbidden Stories to continue his work.

This is the second story of Project.

A group of fishermen from an indigenous community in Guatemala demanded to know more about the environmental impact of a ferronickel mine established on their ancestral land. One of them was killed, and a local reporter was criminalized for covering the story. Forbidden Stories, an international con...

19/06/2019

The project continues til Friday, June 21, Seoul time. Stay tuned to Forbidden Stories and The Korea Center for Investigative Journalism.

19/06/2019

Forbidden Stories, an international consortium of 40 journalists publishing in 30 media organizations around the world, unveils the shameful history of gold leaving the North Mara Gold Mine, located in , to end up in coveted high tech phones and computers.

This is first of the four stories in a series, ' .'

In Tanzania, reporters trying to investigate violence, environmental damage and other wrongdoing connected to a gold mine in the north of the country are trapped between the silence of a mining giant and the lies of a repressive government. At least a dozen reporters – local and international – ...

11/06/2019

Yongjin Kim is a veteran broadcast reporter, who has reported in Korea for thirty years and also plays a critical role in developing Korea’s next generation of investigative reporters.

01/02/2019

As part of the global initiative , investigated how medical device makers and physicians at big-name hospitals are intertwined in financial collusion -- usually involving sponsorship to conferences. It also explored how industry’s long-time practice of offering bribery may impact patients’ safety.

#보건복지부 #공정거래위원회 #한국의료기기산업협회

Korea Center for Investigative Jounalism(KCIJ)-Newstapa has investigated the problems of medical device industry as part of the cross-border investigation project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists(ICIJ) and its 58 member news organizations from 36 countries.

01/02/2019

, the collaborative project with and its 58 member media organizations, unveiled various issues from device makers’ poor recall policies to the collusion between regulators, industry and hospitals.

Korean patients and their family commonly pointed out that they have never been informed of the device name and possible adverse events that may happen in the future. The device regulator Ministry of Food, Drug and Safety ( #식품의약품안전처) offers only limited amount of information on its public database, while its U.S. and Japanese counterparts disclose a lot more than Korean regulator does.

Korea Center for Investigative Jounalism(KCIJ)-Newstapa has investigated the problems of medical device industry as part of the cross-border investigation project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists(ICIJ) and its 58 member news organizations from 36 countries.

26/10/2018

-Newstapa publishes the investigation results of cross-border investigation project ‘ .’ KCIJ-Newstapa and 15 partners from all across the world including the and participated.

The Forbidden Stories is a non-profit project led by to continue and complete works of those fellow investigative journalists who were threatened, jailed or murdered.
The project has completed the suspended works of , an investigative journalist at who was killed in a car bombing while working in Oct. 2017, and published it in April 2018.

Reporting by Forbidden Stories, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, VerdadAbierta.com, Liga Contra El Silencio, Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa - FLIP, FUNDAMEDIOS and Sin Cadenas

On the 26th of March 2018, a journalist and a photographer from Ecuador as well as their driver were kidnapped by former FARC guerillas on the border with Colombia while they were working on a story about drug-trafficking. They were found dead three months later. A group of nineteen Ecuadorian and C...

07/10/2018

Most reporters consider fact-checking has one of the priority process they carry upon publishing an article. Doing so with DPRK coverages is a challenging tasks which many people tend to miss out on. Three veterans of this field delivers their first-hand experience and tips on the matter at IJAsia18.



https://news.kcij.org/78

07/10/2018

Five of the best moments from Zunar’s keynote speech of IJAsia18.

https://news.kcij.org/77

After two days of learning about such heavy topics as threats against the press and investigating war crimes, attendees at the Third Asian Investigative Journalism Conference burst into laughter during Malaysian cartoonist Zunar’s keynote address on October 6.

06/10/2018

Three journalism innovators offer insights and advice for how newsrooms can radically transform their business and organizational models to thrive in the 21st century.



https://news.kcij.org/75

Alan Soon, Co-Founder of Splice Newsroom, has a particularly bold proposition: the “J,” the word “journalism,” in IJAsia will not last another decade. “What is ‘journalism,’ really?” Soon asked. “I think the label is keeping us in a little box. It stops us from trying out new ideas...

06/10/2018

Why Finding data matters in Journalism?

“Open data provides transparency, strengthens democracy, creates jobs, makes government work, and saves lives.”



https://news.kcij.org/74

Finding useful data for investigations is always a hard task for reporters as not all data are public. Simply using a superficial, one-dimensional data will not be enough to acutely analyze what is going on.

05/10/2018

Korea peninsula is currently in the middle of a tectonic change in regards of its inter-Korean relations. Three veteran correspondents offer their view on what is really happening beneath the flood of information in the historic moments of the peninsula.



https://news.kcij.org/72

Korea peninsula is currently in the middle of a tectonic change in regards of its inter-Korean relations. Three veteran correspondents- Moon-Hee Nam, Chul-Young Keum, and Eric Talmadge- gathered at the session of Uncovering Asia 2018 on Oct 8 to offer their view on what is really happening beneath t...