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 "Eastern Europe" ...
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The Offshore Crime
While governments and citizen of Eastern Europe were struggling with the recent financial crisis and trying to borrow money from international institutions, billions of Euros circulated in the rgeion in an illegal, parallel system that enriched organized crime figures and corrupt politicians.
Tags: crime; financial crisis; phantom companies
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Fields of Terror-The New Slave Trade in the Heart of Europe
People from poor countries are becoming modern day slaves as they are lured in on false pretenses and then being held captive. They were promised “good salaries, accommodations, and food”, but instead were beaten and threatened if they asked for these items. These people were becoming slaves and provided many local restaurants with fresh foods from the surrounding fields. Even though this was all happening, many people were continuing to get away with having these modern day slaves and no one was stopping them.
Tags: Czech Republic; Eastern Europe; illegal immigrants; gangsters; criminals; labor; force; manual labor; work
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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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The CIA's Secret War Against Terrorism
This series examines the inner workings, successes and failures of the CIA's covert campaign to capture or kill suspected terrorists. It exposed the existence of secret prisons in Eastern Europe, the death of a detainee in Afghanistan, the existence of intelligence centers around the globe, and the abduction of a radical cleric in Milan.
Tags: CIA; war on terror; war on terrorism; detainees; covert action; intelligence; prisons; torture; Afghanistan; terrorists
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Secret CIA Prisons
This investigation disclosed for the first time the locations of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe. ABC news investigated the prisons as well as the prisoners kept there; it was the first time that information was made public.
Tags: prison; jail; CIA; government conspiracy; federal government; Condoleeza Rice
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ABC News Special 9/11 -- Nuclear Smuggling Project
Broadcast on the anniversary of 9/11, an ABC investigation illustrates the threat of nuclear terrorism by showing how a shipment of radioactive material can easily pass through the U.S. customs. The segment shows correspondent Brian Ross traveling with a suitcase of depleted uranium across Eastern Europe, which he later shipped from Istanbul, Turkey, to the United States. The test material cleared the U.S. customs and was delivered to a warehouse at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Tags: nuclear weapons; radiation; radioactive material; nuclear energy; safety; security; health; Osama bin Laden; al Qaida; TAPE; TRANSCRIPT
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Gunrunners
PBS Frontline broadcasts a Center for Investigative Reporting report on arms smuggling. The story details illegal arms shipments from eastern Europe to rebels in Africa and failed international efforts to curtail the smuggling. The investigation also sheds light on the activities of Leonid Minin, a trafficker linked to Russian and Ukrainian organized crime.
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; Sierra Leone; Liberia; crime; wars; United Nations sanctions; Vadim Rabinovich
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Gunrunners
This 8-minute radio report was part of year-long investigation into the illegal global small arms trade. The investigation details several illegal arms shipments from organized crime groups in eastern Europe to rebel forces fighting for diamonds in Africa. The report focused on thew supplier-side of the illegal gunrunning to soldiers in Sierra Leona and its neighbors.
Tags: Sierra Leone; gunrunners; illegal trade; Africa; Cold War; UN; ammunition; trafficking; TAPE; RADIO; transcript
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Billion Dollar Business
CBS News reports on the illegal trafficking of women from Eastern Europe to Italian brothels. Christiane Amanpour from CNN, on a special assignment for 60 Minutes, tells the stories of young girls who have been recruited from bankrupt ex-socialist countries. They have been lured with promises for decent job or marriage abroad, and then sold and resold in the prostitution "cattle market." The police in the girls' home countries - Moldova, Romania, Ukraine - is aware of the illegal recruiting but is too corrupt to take any measures. Few of the victims manage to escape due to the help of Italian priests. Some find help in a shelter funded by the U.S. and Swiss governments and run by Ken Patterson from Missouri. Still, most victims remain ensnared "in an underworld controlled by ruthless gangs."
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; Mafia; gangs; violence; organized crime; Albania; Vlora; poverty; post-communism; human rights
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Risky Business: The last unit at Chernobyl was shut down in December 2000. But Russia has opened three more reactors just like it.
The Bulletin reports that a Western-backed development bank has agreed to help fund the completion of two Soviet-designed reactors in Ukraine that are similar to the reactor at Chernobyl that "spewed radioactive contaminants over a significant portion of Europe" in 1986. Wesolowsky writes that the West has a "Jekyl-and-Hyde nature" when it comes to nuclear safety in former communist states. "At times, the West works to shut down the most dangerous of Soviet-designed reactors." At other times, it helps fund the construction of reactors like those being built in Ukraine, he writes. "In fact, little has changed on the nuclear power landscape over the past decade. Apart from Chernobyl, not a single reactor of any type has been taken out of service in Eastern Europe. Four new reactors have gone on-line there since 1992. Russia has added three more 'RBMK' reactors - the same model found in Chernobyl - to its nuclear stable. Even today, 50 percent of Russia's nuclear power is generated by RBMK reactors."
Tags: nuclear energy; Chernobyl; Russia; power plant