Former Plain Dealer reporter and University at Albany journalism professor Rosemary Armao
was recently part of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, which won the Daniel Pearl Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting for a piece entitled "Off Shore Ink."
The piece provides a look at how organized crime and shady businesses have used corruption procedures in places like the Caribbean and Cyprus to elude accountability.
The project's website explained:
A series of stories documenting offshore tax havens, the criminals who use them and the millions of dollars in lost tax money has been awarded the top prize by the The International Consortium for Investigative Journalists.
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project assembled a team of reporters throughout Eastern Europe and the United States to track the burgeoning network of offshore companies used to hide ownership and assets, launder money and create secret businesses that elude law enforcement agents worldwide.
The award was announced in Kyiv, Ukraine at the 2011 Global Investigative Journalism Conference. The prize is named in honor of Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was murdered in Pakistan in 2002 while attempting to interview members of the Al Qaeda terrorist network.
Over the course of six months, OCCRP reporters investigated offshore tax havens including the U.S. state of Delaware, the Cayman Islands, Seychelles, New Zealand, Romania and Ukraine. The project, Offshore Crime Inc. included OCCRP reporters going undercover posing as businessmen looking to cheat on taxes with impunity.
OCCRP was selected the top project out of 70 entries from 30 countries.
To see the University of Albany's student press story go to: http://www.albanystudentpress.org/news/ualbany-professor-recognized-for-international-reporting-1.2678414#.Tu1jGJhE670
