The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Bulgaria" ...
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"Document Dilemma"
In a series of stories, a group of reporters investigates the illegal handling of passports and visas by criminals, the wealthy and the politically connected. Corruption and bribery often overshadow the legal process of global travel and obtaining citizenship.
Tags: Visa; Fraud; Russia; Bulgaria; Macedonia; Moldova; Ukraine; passports; travel; forgery; bribery
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Game of Control
While some agencies have chipped away at corruption in football, their efforts have stopped at their national borders. Criminals have observed no boundaries. Reporters for the Organize Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a consortium of investigative reporters, took a months-long look at the business of football in the southeast Europe and the former Soviet Union. They found networks of agents and power stakeholders quietly skimming transfer fees and working through tax havens and companies with shell proxies to avoid taxes. In post-transition Bulgaria some 200 killings have been linked to football. Among the dead are 15 club leaders who attained their posts through questionable means.
Tags: football; soccer; corruption; murder; athletes; organized crime; Eastern Europe
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Slavery of the Brothel
An extensive account of the growing sex slave trade in the Balkans -- particularly Kosovo. "A virulent Mafia business is thriving in postwar Kosovo: the $7 to $12 billion traffic in Eastern European women lured by promises of work, then forced into prostitution. Despite international efforts, sex slave traders have been nearly impossible to prosecute, thanks to corruption, local laws, and the victims' fear of testifying. Tracing the path of one young Moldovan woman, Sebastian Junger conducts his own investigation of a vicious cycle that traps as many as 200,000 women a year."
Tags: sex; sex slavery; slavery; brothel; prostitution; prostitute; hooker; strip; strip club; sexual abuse; mafia; organized crime; balkans; kosovo; serbia; moldova; bulgaria
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Of Human Bondage
NBC News Dateline investigates a "startling and disturbing new criminal trend: the buying and selling of women for sexual slavery in developed countries like the United States." The story "follows the trail of women from rural Ukraine to the Czech Republic and finally to brothels in the United States," and identifies "entire communities and villages where brothels were stocked with enslaved girls as young as 14 years old." The story "profiles a handful of the estimated 2 million women who are illegally trafficked out of their home countries ..." "The report visits bogus employment offices and documents exactly how recruiters entice young, educated women with false promises of lucrative jobs abroad."
Tags: TAPE; NO TRANSCRIPT; California Public Records Act; prostitution; women; slavery rings; Eastern Europe: Ukraine; Czech Republic; Poland; Bulgaria; Bosnia; INS; FBI; INTERPOL
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An innocent man?
CNN examines the case of California computer salesman Robert Wheeler. Wheeler was stung in the U.S. Customs' "Operation Edodus" and convicted of selling sophisticated technology to Bulgaria. But 10 years later, doubts remain about his guilt, since his chief accuser, a government informer, has recanted his testimony.
Tags: TAPE
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Investigations in Bulgaria
Van Sant and Halderman did a follow-up on their original investigation of the place that's been called the most dangerous nuclear power plant in the world. They discovered that many of the original safety violations had not been corrected. Additional story: The reporters also discovered that Bulgaria is a major supplier of bootlegged CDs to Eastern Europe.
Tags: TAPE Environment
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American University in Bulgaria
The American University in Bulgaria was established in 1991 a joint venture between the University of Maine, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Soros Foundation and the Bulgarian government. The school, the only American university in Eastern Europe, was meant to be a bastion of western thought and values in the former Communist bloc. Although the school has been open for six years, no one had really looked into whether the American university was living up to its mission as a democratizing force in Eastern Europe. What was found was both heartening and disappointing. For example, the students are highly motivated, but they are sometimes hindered by a faculty and administration that is not of the highest caliber. Faculty turnover is astoundingly high so the university has been unable to build a base of experienced teachers and administrators. In addition, the university faces massive financial problems that would daunt any school administrator.
Tags: None
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No title (id: 2844)
Reader's Digest article details how Bulgaria trades guns to Middle Eastern nations for drugs that it then sells in the West, November 1983.
Tags: Adams