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 "organ trafficking" ...
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Crime and Human Organs
Bloomberg Markets magazine shows how impoverished people from Belarus to Nicaragua have been humiliated, maimed, and killed by organ traffickers and the doctors with whom they work. The stories expose the activities of transplant rings that supply wealthy Americans, Europeans, and Israelis with kidneys extracted from the poor.
Tags: Belarus; Nicaragua; Kidney; Organ Donation; Black Market
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Deceptive Nonprofit
Investigation of "Stop Child Trafficking Now" nonprofit. Despite bold claims at its fundraising events, the investigation found SCTNow was not living up to its promoted message of taking child predators off the streets. In fact, the organization could not point to one case anywhere in the country where information gathered by "special operatives" had lead to an arrest or prosecution. It did not seem like much of a return on a $400,000 investment- the annual amount used to fund "special operative" teams.
Tags: Child Trafficking; Nonprofits
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Death In The Desert
Exposing trafficking and enslavement of African refugees in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula -- a lawless place ruled by Bedouin tribes. Crimes involved include, but are not limited to, extortion, torture, human and organ trafficking, and murder.
Tags: sinai; peninsula; human trafficking; africa; refugee; Bedouin; torture; extortion; organ trafficking
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Death in the Desert
"This story exposes the trafficking and enslavement of African refugees in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula--a lawless place ruled by Bedouin tribes. What CNN's Pleitgen found was not only trafficking and enslavement, but also organ trafficking."
Tags: African refugees; Sinai Peninsula; Bedouin tribes; human trafficking; enslavement; broadcast
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Shriners' Investigation
Frost has reported this story for three years, picking up where the ORlando Sentinel left off twenty years ago by focusing on how the Shriners used charitable donations to fund mortgages for executives, directors and key employees and failed to report these transactions, specifically the mortgage satisfactions, on their exempt organization tax returns (990 form.) This past year, most of Frost's focus has been on the Shriners secret sub-group, the Royal Order of Jesters who were involved in a series of sex crimes.
Tags: Shriners; Royal Order of Jesters; prostitution; sex trafficking; drugs; nonprofit organizations; fraud
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Tobacco Underground: The Booming Global Trade in Smuggled Cigarettes
"Tobacco Underground" is groundbreaking series on the global trade in smuggled cigarettes, produced by a team of 14 journalists based in 10 countries. The illicit trafficking of tobacco is a multibillion-dollar business today, fueling organized crime and corruption, robbing governments of needed tax money, and spurring addiction to a deadly product. So profitable is the trade that tobacco is the world's most widely smuggled legal substance. In an interactive, multimedia Web site, ICIJ published a series of nine stories, integrated with undercover footage; audio and video interviews with experts, smugglers and undercover agents; maps and charts; and extensive links to resources ranging from tobacco control groups to repositories of tobacco industry documents.
Tags: tobacco; smuggling; new media; international journalism; cigarette; tobacco
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BMF: Hip-Hop's Shadowy Empire
The Atlanta-based Black Mafia Family "were hip-hop royalty without a hit." Investigators asserted that the BMF was actually one of the "more elaborate drug-trafficking enterprises in the country." The entertainment industry and the criminal underworld came together in the BMF, which the police finally cracked when a high-placed member broke the code of silence. In summer 2005, the organization's crimes began to escalate until it was tied to more violent acts, and the investigators "made their move." This story links the BMF to six unsolved murders, as well as to music figures like Sean "P. Diddy" Combs", Bobby Brown and Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin.
Tags: Demetrius "Big Meech" Flenory; Black Mafia Family; cocaine; murder; crime organization; hip-hop music
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Border Violence
The reporters investigated the war unfolding along the U.S.-Mexican border involving drug trafficking organizations and both governments. The authors were interested in going beyond the body counts to why this violence was happening, why it had begun to accelerate and how it had reached cities like Dallas, hundreds of miles north of the border.
Tags: violence; border control; drug cartels; drug war; Mexico - U.S. border; gangs; Nuevo Laredo; law enforcement; Zetas
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Dangerous Doses: How Counterfeiters are Contaminating America's Drug Supply
Eban writes about how medicine available from seemingly trustworthy sources like pharmacies and hospitals is sometimes not safe. The book shows how stolen, expired, mishandled or adulterated medicine cans still make their way into pharmacies and hospitals because they are passed through several other companies who buy and sell to one another. These companies sometimes have ties to drug traffickers and organized crime.
Tags: FDA; Food and Drug Administration; narcotics; hospitals; doctors; pharmaceuticals; pharmaceutical companies; drug dealers; Medicaid; Medicare; Mafia; business; prescription drugs; doctors; pharmacists; Operation Cold Stone
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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