The Best Investigative Stories from Around the World in 2024

At the end of every year, GIJN's Regional Editors have the difficult task of selecting and highlighting some of the very best investigations produced within or about their region, or in their language.

We've curated Editor's Picks of investigations published about China, in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, South East Asia, Turkey, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus, as well as works produced in these languages: German, Spanish, French, Ukrainian, and Portuguese.

This newsletter edition goes one step further – we are showcasing some of the (highly subjective) best of the best investigations selection from across the globe published in 2024. Take a tour around the world with these 14 stories digging into topics that range from India’s illicit gold economy to digital slavery in Asia.

Catch Me If You Can (Pakistan)

Naziha Syed Ali is a veteran investigative reporter and an assistant editor at the English-language newspaper, DAWN. Her recent reporting has focused on financial corruption, including a series on the development of Bahria Town, a gated community on the outskirts of Karachi. In this follow-up investigation, she reported that Bahria Town has been expanding — violating a 2019 Supreme Court judgment that allowed the project a specific acreage? — and that the people behind the project have been both misleading the court and those who bought property in the development. She also reported that the real estate company has not paid a court-mandated fine.

?? Full Pakistan Editor's Pick: Here.

A Sick House: Inside Charité?(in German)

The Berlin-based Charité hospital is renowned for its excellent healthcare, drawing patients from all over the world. So it came as a great shock when a team of Stern/RTL Investigativ reporters uncovered evidence of substantial problems in the medical facility. With undercover reporting, they revealed a behind-the-scenes look at the hospital featuring overworked doctors, potentially life-threatening mistakes, and patients left in pain without treatment. The investigation also paints an alarming picture of the German healthcare system, where resources and facilities are overstretched.

?? Full Editor's Pick in German: Here.

Underbelly of India’s Illicit Gold Economy (India)

Gold ornaments are an integral part of Indian culture, and this past year saw a 37% rise in gold prices. Apart from gold's aesthetic value, many Indian households treat investment in it as an auspicious thing and, as a result, this demand has prompted massive smuggling of the precious metal into the country from Arabian and African countries. India’s leading general interest magazine, THE WEEK , unravelled the ‘’seamy underbelly of India’s gold economy,”? exposing the illicit routes of gold imports and the agents involved in it.

?? Full India Editors' Pick: Here.

Regional — Golden Opacity (In Spanish)

This multi-part, cross-border investigation reveals how criminal groups exploit the global trade in gold, disguising their operations under the facade of “artisan” mining, while selling to international markets. Convoca worked in collaboration with leading investigative outlets from Latin America, such as Repórter Brasil , Plan V , Rutas del Conflicto , Consejo de Redacción , Runrunes , El Pitazo , and Armando.Info , to reveal that half of the gold exported from five Latin American countries is of “unknown” origin.

?? Full Editor's Pick in Spanish: Here.

Counting a Carnage?(Bangladesh)

During a momentous riot last year, as protesters surged through the streets of the capital, Dhaka, law enforcement agencies struggled to maintain control. But according to this report by The Daily Star , they used violent force to suppress the student-led protest that ultimately forced former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to step down. The Star team obtained hundreds of autopsy reports to conclude that most of those who died had bullet wounds to the head, chest, stomach, and abdomen.

?? Full Bangladesh Editor's Pick: Here.

North Africa — Deportation ‘Desert Dumps’ (in French)

This year-long investigation by a team of more than 30 journalists from Enass, Inkyfada , Le Monde , Lighthouse Reports , and other international media organizations uncovered arrest and deportation practices carried out by three North African countries, which the reporting team claim is being backed and financed by the European Union. The migrants were turned away and abandoned in remote desert or mountainous areas of Morocco, Mauritania, and Tunisia to prevent them from reaching the Mediterranean Sea. According to the investigation, this left a vulnerable population “without any assistance, water or food, leaving them at risk of kidnapping, extortion, torture, sexual violence, and, in the worst instances, death.”

?? Full Editor's Pick in French: Here.

Blood on the Shelves: The Secrets of Xinjiang’s Tomato Industry (about China)

This year-long BBC investigation revealed that major supermarkets in the UK and Germany may have unwittingly sold ketchup made from tomatoes harvested by forced laborers in China’s Xinjiang region. Conducting research in Xinjiang is notoriously difficult, but the BBC team worked with publicly available information to report out the story, including social media searches, satellite images, corporate records, and shipping data.

?? Full Editor's Picks About China: Here.

Border Hell: The Online Gambling Mafia and Digital Slavery in Asia (Indonesia)

In this documentary, investigative news site Deduktif uncovered the practices of a transnational criminal network behind a scam operation in the city of Shwe Kokko on the Myanmar-Thailand border, which has become a hub for online gambling, trafficking, and fraud operations. The network allegedly includes politicians, armed organizations, Myanmar’s military junta, Chinese organized crime members, and prominent businessmen in multiple countries.

?? Full Editor's Pick from Southeast Asia: Here.

Banality of Evil (Turkey)

This story begins when a mother receives the devastating news that her baby, who was born healthy, had died of an infection after having been transferred to an intensive care unit at a private hospital. Her subsequent complaint launched a wider investigation into the deaths of newborns in similar situations, which led to a nationwide scandal involving a gang accused of having put profits ahead of infants’ treatment.

?? Full Editor's Pick from Turkey: Here.

US Mercenaries in Yemen, Hired by UAE (Middle East)

This documentary by the BBC Eye’s Arabic investigative team revealed troubling evidence of military operations in Yemen carried out by US mercenaries and allegedly financed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), including the apparent assassination of Yemeni political figures the UAE viewed as a threat.

?? Full Editor's Pick from the Middle East: Here.

Fertile Deception (sub-Saharan Africa)

In a two-part documentary produced by a Cynthia Gichiri -led investigative team, Africa Uncensored went undercover to document how unscrupulous businesses cleverly packaged ordinary sand and sold it to unsuspecting farmers as organic fertilizers. To corroborate their evidence from the undercover investigation, Africa Uncensored conducted laboratory tests on the counterfeit fertilizers being sold as a part of the subsidy program.

?? Full Sub-Saharan Africa Editor's Pick: Here.

‘Apples’ for Protests and Votes (Moldova)

A journalist from Ziarul de Garda (ZdG) worked undercover for three months to uncover how people were being recruited by pro-Kremlin forces in an attempt to influence the results of a referendum on Moldova’s European integration. The reporter described how, together with other “activists,” she participated in protests and meetings with candidates, handing out leaflets with fake information about the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union.

?? Full Editor's Pick from Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus: Here.

Brazilian Institute Produced Poison for Chilean Dictatorship to Assassinate Opponents (in Portuguese)

In 2024, Brazil marked 60 years since the coup d’état that established the military dictatorship. To mark the milestone, GIJN member Agência Pública published a series of stories that “reveal how there is still much to be investigated about the long years in which the military and civilian alliance took away our democracy.” In one of the reports, the outlet detailed how one of the most renowned scientific institutes in Brazil — Butantan — was involved in the persecution of scientists considered “communists."

?? Full Portuguese Editor's Pick: Here.

We Found Them (Ukraine)

After broadcasting a series of investigative reports uncovering high-level corruption in government contracts for reconstruction in Ukraine, journalists from GIJN member Bihus.Info became the target of an online campaign seeking to discredit their team. Compromising information, including phone call records and video footage from hidden cameras, appeared on a little-known website called Narodna Pravda — where staff portraits of its purported editors and journalists were AI-generated. After analyzing excerpts of published phone conversations and videos, Bihus.Info journalists discovered that they had been followed and surveilled for roughly a year.

?? Full Editor's Pick from Ukraine: Here.

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