Paradise Papers Wins Polk Award

The Paradise Papers investigation of wealth stashed offshore has won a George Polk Award, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalist’s second Polk Award in as many years. The team of more than 380 journalists from six continents was honored with the Financial Reporting Award.

CMDS fellow Dean Starkman is among those journalists who worked on Paradise Papers: a global investigation into the offshore activities of some of the world’s most powerful people and companies. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and 95 media partners explored 13.4 million leaked files from a combination of offshore service providers and the company registries of some of the world’s most secretive countries.

Starkman, who is also visiting lecturer at the School of Public Policy at Central European University, has worked as an investigative reporter for more than two decades. He covered white-collar crime and real estate for The Wall Street Journal and helped lead the Providence Journal's investigative team to a Pulitzer Prize in 1994. Besides Starkman, who worked as a journalist and an editor for the Paradise Papers, investigative journalists Andras Petho, founder of the Hungarian investigative news portal Direkt36 and Paul Radu, executive director of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project have also helped ICIJ to uncover the companies and personalities implicated in the Paradise Papers.