LATIN AMERICA: Investigative Journalists
Show Their Mettle
By Ángel Páez
LIMA (IPS) - "One way of ensuring the
future of journalism is to improve content
quality, and this means investigating what
is deliberately hidden, like corruption,"
said Gerardo Reyes, a reporter for the Miami
newspaper El Nuevo Herald, on a visit to the
Peruvian capital.
Reyes was one of the judges for the Prize
for the Best Journalistic Investigation of a
Case of Corruption in Latin America, awarded
by the Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (Press
and Society Institute of Peru, IPYS) and the
Berlin-based Transparency International
(TI).
"After selecting the winners and reading
over a hundred entries, we can say without
any hesitation that investigative journalism
in the region is alive and well," Reyes told
IPS.
An example of its vitality is the work done
by reporters Ernesto Rivera and Giannina
Segnini, of the Costa Rican newspaper La
Nación, and Daniela Arbex, Táscia Souza and
Ricardo Miranda of the daily Tribuna de
Minas, in the city of Juiz de Fora in the
Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, who shared
the first prize.
Rivera and Segnini unearthed illegal
financial dealings with potentially dirty
money, carried out by officials of the
Catholic Church in Costa Rica.
"It never crossed our minds that Church
authorities could be involved in illegal
financial operations with dirty money, until
we saw the cheques and accounts involving
millions of dollars," Segnini told IPS.
"We have investigated corruption in
government circles and also in the private
sphere, but no one wakes up one morning
thinking: let's investigate the Church
today. What was most surprising was the
involvement of the top authorities of the
Costa Rican Bishops' Conference," she said.
Segnini said that "at first, the president
of the Bishops' Conference, Monsignor
Francisco Ulloa, said he was not aware of
the illegal financial dealings, but after La
Nación published the stories, the General
Superintendence of Financial Entities (SUGEF,
a regulatory authority) brought a complaint
and the prosecutor's office raided its
premises looking for evidence of
wrong-doing.
"We realised the impact of what we had
discovered when, without warning, all the
members of the Bishops' Conference, led by
its president, turned up at the La Nación
editorial offices to offer explanations,"
Segnini said.
The Costa Rican journalists' investigation
was triggered by a complaint by
Swiss-Italian businesswoman Ana Moscarelli,
who ultimately was shown to have
participated in the illegal dealings and to
have a record in Switzerland for managing
the accounts of corrupt politicians and of
persons linked to the Mafia.
Brazilian journalists Arbex, Souza and
Miranda, for their part, investigated the
president of the city council in Juiz de
Fora, Vicente de Paula Olivera, popularly
known as Vicentão, who awarded 11 contracts
to a front company that really belonged to
him.
When this was reported in Tribuna de Minas,
and he lost the elections in which he was
standing for a sixth consecutive term as the
candidate of the centre-right Brazilian
Labour Party (PTB), Vicentão resigned. A
judicial investigation for alleged
corruption was subsequently opened against
him.
Arbex said Vicentão had appointed an
executive in the Koji construction company
that he covertly owned, to be his right-hand
person in the public tenders and contracts
office.
"We were up against a carefully constructed
corruption scam," said Arbex at the
presentation of her team's work. "When we
interviewed Vicentão, we were taken aback
when he claimed: 'Honestly, I am not the
owner of Koji.' But now he is facing justice
for his lies," she said.
The winners of this year's competition
presented their work at the Aug. 15-18 Latin
American Conference on Investigative
Journalism organised by IPYS and TI in Lima.
The conference included the award ceremony,
as well as classes by experts like Reyes,
who recently published "Nuestro hombre en la
DEA" ("Our Man at the DEA" - U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration), the untold
story of photographer Baruch Vega, who
helped United States authorities capture
Colombian drug traffickers.
Ricardo Uceda, executive director of IPYS,
told IPS that 189 investigative pieces from
19 countries were submitted, indicating that
investigative journalism in this region has
been growing in strength, in spite of all
the talk about the print media facing a
crisis.
"The judges selected for recognition stories
revealing corruption in spheres unrelated to
the state," Uceda said.
"The final selection and special mentions
included journalistic pieces that revealed
corruption in non-governmental organisations,
the media and trade unions, as well as
organised crime activities, to mention a few
cases," he said.
Second prize went to Santiago Fascetto, of
the Panamanian newspaper La Prensa, for his
work reporting irregular payments received
by former president Martín Torrijos in
connection with a secret contract with a
high government official in the Dominican
Republic.
Salvadoran reporter Jorge Antonio Ávalos,
with El Diario de Hoy, won third prize for
articles exposing false accusations of
environmental damage made against a battery
recycling factory.
The Tribuna de Minas stands out for being a
provincial newspaper, proving that it is not
necessary to work in a large city or have
lots of resources in order to undertake
investigative journalism.
"It was an exceptional case of homegrown
investigative journalism, sustained by sheer
persistence, uncovering fact after fact
without the aid of information leaked from
the police, the prosecutor's office or third
parties. In a climate of hostility and
obstructionism, the reporters examined each
fact without fear or favour, hit the nail on
the head, and brought down a powerful local
politician," said Uceda.
"It's a model. It was awarded the prize, not
because of its impact - it had little or
none at the national level - nor because of
the star careers of the journalists, but due
to its methods and results," he said.
At the Lima conference, Reyes shared his
experiences on how to track dirty money. He
said laws on money laundering are quite
lenient and the banks are let off too
lightly.
"The U.S. government does not seem to be
very keen on fighting money laundering," he
told IPS. An indication of this is that "it
only invests 120 million dollars in
combating this crime."
The author of "Our Man at the DEA" said one
of the greatest challenges faced by
investigative journalists is the close
relationship between the banking system and
money laundering, because whenever a case is
detected, the banks tend to get off
scot-free.
"The banks have come to the conclusion that
money laundering is good business, and that
the risk is worth running," he said.
"They conclude this because in the end it is
middle-ranking officials, or the poor
employees who open the accounts, who are
punished. And the penalties are not severe
and do not have serious consequences. After
paying the fines, the bank carries on as if
nothing has happened. Its reputation remains
intact," he said.
When an investigative journalist exposes
banks implicated in money laundering, it
will certainly be front page news. |
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