How I investigated the Panama Papers

Esther Martin (esther.martin@informa.com), assistant editor. Some of the content for this article was derived from the keynote speech of Bastian Obermayer at the 2018 ACFE Fraud Conference Europe, in addition to a subsequent personal interview. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners is the world’s leading anti-fraud organisation and provider of anti-fraud training, education and certification (www.acfe.com).

It’s three years this month since a journalistic investigation of unprecedented scale splashed colourfully onto the media front pages. Nearly 400 reporters in 80 countries collaborated to share their findings from the largest data leak in history – 2.6 terabytes, or 11.5 million leaked documents. Esther Martin spoke with Bastian Obermayer about how it all unfolded.