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Financial Investigations

Whatever your beat – from politics or conflict, to sport, fashion or travel – pursuing impactful investigations requires journalists to examine the actions of private companies. Despite a world of corporate PR spin and complex financial structures that often work to obscure what’s actually going on, there are a wealth of tools and techniques to help investigators.

Knowing what you can find, where to look for it and how to make sense of it, both for yourself and for your readers, will allow you to explore and understand financial details so you can draw conclusions and drive your projects forward.

This training provides tools for deep financial research and guides participants through investigations that lead to offshore accounts in secrecy jurisdictions.

Technical Requirements

This course will need you to have the following software/apps/tools on your computer:

  • Zoom app
  • Camera and audio

This course will be hosted on Zoom. To find out more about how we use Zoom, please check out our Zoom InfoSec page.

Course Structure

Exercises and additional viewing of tutorial videos will be provided to supplement the training between sessions.

Important

Our training is not recorded: if you miss a session, it is lost – you cannot watch a recording of it, nor will you be allowed to attend that session at a later date.

18 April 2023 – Company Accounts

10:00–13:30
This session will teach you how to find information on Companies House, how to use its search tools to find meaningful data and how to interpret the information you come across. It will also provide guidance on the limitations and insufficiencies of the registry.

19 April 2023 – Financial Open-Source Intelligence

10:00–13:30
Open-Source Intelligence (frequently referred to as OSINT) has become crucial to many investigators’ ability to cross-examine allegations and reports of serious financial crimes. These practical sessions will take you through real-life cases to teach you the core techniques to conduct deep-dive investigations to uncover opaque global company structures used to facilitate money laundering, corruption, bribery, tax fraud schemes, and more.

20 April 2023 – Follow-the-Money Case Studies

10:00–13:30
These sessions will guide you through a real life investigation into dodgy dealings, offshore scams and shell companies. Each case study will provide you with copies of actual documents that the investigators used to identify points of interest and unearth the next piece of information or set of documents.. The final session also includes an additional 30 mins Q&A with all the trainers for participants to clarify points from the whole course or ask for more specific advice.

Diogo Augusto

Diogo Augusto comes from a background in Sociology, having worked as a lecturer and researcher for 10 years in universities in Portugal and Belize. As a sociologist he specialised in cultural and political issues.

Dylan Kennedy

Dylan Kennedy has over two decades of expertise in the United Kingdom’s leading international Law Enforcement Agencies, Global Correspondent Banking Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Investigations, and Global Express Courier Logistics sectors.

Daniel Balint-Kurti

Daniel Balint-Kurti is an investigative journalist specialised in reporting on corruption, for outlets including OCCRP, Private Eye and Africa Confidential. Before going freelance in 2020, he was Head of Investigations at Global Witness, and has a background as a reporter and editor at The Times, AP and Reuters.

Leigh Baldwin

Leigh Baldwin is the editor of the non-profit investigative journalism organisation SourceMaterial. He was previously a corruption investigator for Global Witness and a reporter for Bloomberg News.
  • 18 April 2023 10.00–13.30 Timezone: BST (UK Time)
  • 19 April 2023 10.00–13.30 Timezone: BST (UK Time)
  • 20 April 2023 10.00–13.30 Timezone: BST (UK Time)
Timezone: BST (UK Time)
Location: Zoom meeting
Fully booked:
11–13 July 2023

Financial Investigations

Whatever your beat – from politics or conflict, to sport, fashion or travel – pursuing impactful investigations requires journalists to examine the actions of private companies. Despite a world of corporate PR spin and complex financial structures that often work to obscure what’s actually going on, there are a wealth of tools and techniques to help investigators.

The Investigative Journalist’s Guide to Company Accounts

by Raj Bairoliya

An introduction from the author, Raj Bairoliya A little history is in order. A dozen or so years ago, I was complaining to my friend Michael Gillard about the standard of financial investigative journalism in the UK – it was a matter of serious concern to me as I make my living from investigating wrongdoing.

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