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 "financial services" ...
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Dark Markets
The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of financial markets in 2012 performed a rare and extraordinary service: It exposed evidence of hidden manipulation by corporate executives and professional traders that the markets’ official government watchdogs were utterly unaware of. Reflecting potential widespread harm to millions of ordinary investors, federal prosecutors and securities regulators raced to follow the Journal stories with major investigations. A team of reporters spent six months creating a database examining how more than 20,000 corporate executives traded their own companies’ stocks over the course of eight years. What the team found was disturbing: More than 1,000 executives had generated big profits, or avoided big losses, by trading their company stock in the days ahead of corporate news announcements that led to big moves in the shares. The Journal also exposed a regulatory loophole that had helped the executives take advantage of inside knowledge ahead of other investors. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office and the Securities and Exchange Commission all launched investigations the day the Journal article appeared.
Tags: Financial markets; corporate executives; stocks; Federal Bureau of Investigation
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Platts: Russian Gas Giant Mines U.S. Energy Data
Russia’s state-owned natural gas company says the U.S. shale-gas boom is economically unsustainable — and it’s buttressing its claim with financial data collected by an American consulting firm located less than 20 miles from the White House. Moscow-based Gazprom, the world’s largest gas company, is working with Pace Global Energy Services, a consulting firm in Fairfax, Virginia, to analyze how much money U.S. gas companies are spending on hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. Gazprom, citing the Virginia company’s data, says the true costs of U.S. shale-gas production are upwards of 150% higher than the revenues its practitioners have been reaping in the last few years. Gazprom says this will ultimately lead to the demise of fracking-based shale-gas drilling in the US and other countries that are considering adopting it. But Gazprom’s critics say the company and its unlikely Washington-area ally are spreading “myths and misconceptions” about the U.S.-led shale-gas gas boom so that European and Asian countries will not develop their own shale plays, and will instead continue to buy conventional Russian gas.
Tags: Oil; gas; natural resources; fraud; oil wells
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Atalissa
For three decades a dozen mentally disabled men have been living together. Their living conditions were nowhere near ideal; they lived in a run-down bunkhouse and worked full-time in a turkey processing plant. They normally made about “$65 a month”, but sometimes received as “little as 40 cents an hour”. The series revealed possible “human trafficking, abuse and neglect, and financial exploitation of the mentally disabled”.
Tags: Henry's Turkey Service; US Department of Labor; health inspectors; mistreatment; West Liberty Foods; Muscatine County
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"Cash Committee"
In this story, Huffington Post reporters show the "revolving door" between Congress and "industry," and how both use the House Financial Services Committee to raise money for lawmakers, especially in the private sector.
Tags: House Financial Services Committee; lawmakers; House; Congress; lobbyists; private sector; Wall Street; the Hill
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National Prearranged Services, a House of Cards
"This series concerned a multimillion-dollar insurance fraud perpetrated by National Prearranged services, a large national insurance provider, against dozens of its business customers, many of whom were driven to financial hardship and even bankruptcy as a result of NPS' actions.
Tags: fraud; prearranged funeral services; funeral; mortuary; insurance;
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Corruption in the 2-million-member Service Employees
This investigation of the nation's fastest-growing labor union uncovered corruption in its largest California local as well as questionable financial practices at several affiliated organizations and its national headquarters. The stories revealed that the president of the California chapter - who represented nearly 200,000 working poor people, caregivers making about $9 an hour - had funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in dues money to himself his relatives, and spent similar sums on golf resorts, expensive restaurants and a Beverly Hills cigar lounge. They also showed that Tyrone Freeman misused two nonprofits for financial gain and political purposes, and that the head of the SEIU's largest Michigan local misappropriated funds from one of the charities. In addition, the stories reported that the SEIU's national office, while holding itself up as a model of reform, paid millions of dollars to consulting firms, nonprofits, and individuals with family ties and other personal connections to the union's top leaders.
Tags: Unions; SEIU; corruption; California; Michigan; Tyrone Freeman
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"Prescription for Profits"
The Wall Street Journal examined whether nonprofit hospitals, which account for the majority of hospitals in the U.S., deserve the billions of dollars in annual tax exemptions they receive. The Journal's series revealed that, far from struggling financially, many nonprofit hospitals have become profit machines while shirking their charitable missions. Among the series' findings: Some pay tens of thousands of dollars upfront' others have closed facilities in poor inner cities and built new ones in affluent suburbs; and one hospital put patients' lives at risk to increase its lucrative liver-transplant business.
Tags: charitable causes; medical service; patient care; hospital taxes; nonprofit hospitals; Amish; Mennonites
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Inhumanity Has a Price
This story examined the human and financial costs of jail conditions in the fourth largest U.S. country. It quantified the costs of those conditions by comparing statistical data about the jail to statistics from similar-sized jails in the country. The story found that the custodian of this jail has been sued thousands of times more than the custodian of larger jails, that the combined cost to defend, settle and insure against these lawsuits was $41.4 million, that the country has not implemented changes recommended by national experts, and that the county's Environmental Services inspectors have documented environmental health concerns in the jails.
Tags: jail costs; county jail; corruption; justice system; health concerns; prison conditions
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Who's guarding your data in the cybervault
Acohido and Swartz look at "how the financial services industry enables cyber crooks to systematically steal sensitive data, enabling cyber crooks to invent new kinds of Internet-enabled financial scams."
Tags: Internet; crime; online; cyber crime; cyber; financial institutions; online banking; data; security; encryption; scams; phishing; ChoicePoint; LexisNexis; Inelius;
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Nursing Homes
In Texas three nursing homes were able to continue to operate and expand despite bankruptcies and other financial trouble, due to the aid of bureaucrats and corporations. Also "nurse aides banned for abuse and neglect by the state were then recertified by the same department to work as nurse aides.
Tags: nurse; nursing; homes; corporations; bankruptcy; federal tax liens; fines; Department of Aging and Disability Services;