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 "smuggler" ...
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Gangster Rep
Federal agents and officers hired to protect the U.S-Mexico border too often succumb to the temptation of fast, easy money, sex and power.
Tags: Border protection; Mexico; Smugglers
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Made in the U.S.A.
Despite a U.S. embargo against Iran, hundreds of people and companies in the U.S. have been caught smuggling the goods to Iran. CBS shows how vast the underground smuggling network is and how smugglers are moving the weapons from the U.S. to Iran through third countries like Malaysia or Dubai.
Tags: Iran; embargo; weapon trade; underground; Malaysia; Dubai
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Road to Nowhere:The men who are caught transporting illegal immigrants rarely pay the price
A Colorado law passed to prohibit human smuggling has proven to be difficult to enforce. Most charges against human smugglers are dismissed or don't end up in court.
Tags: illegal immigration; human smuggling; border; state troopers; smuggler
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"The Lost Chalice"
Author Vernon Silver dives deep into the Italian world of art smuggling. Through court documents and "interviews with modern tomb robbers, smugglers and art dealers," Silver is able to locate a valuable missing vase. The book provides an in-depth look at the world's third largest "underground economy," and how a "network of powerful people and institutions" has been at the center of the "illicit art and cultural property trade."
Tags: Euphronios; Oxford University; Metropolitan Museum of Art; chalice; Zeus; art smugglers; tomb raiders
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"The War Next Door"
Violence has increased in Mexico as the government cracks down on the drug cartels. Murders and kidnappings have increased, and Mexican citizens are afraid to leave their homes. Interviews with the Mexican Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security reveal the role of the U.S. in combating the problem. A jailhouse interview with a prominent female drug smuggler gives insight to the workings of the drug trafficking world.
Tags: Sandra Avila Beltran; drug smuggling; drug cartel; Mexico; Janet Napolitano; Medina Mora; cocaine; Columbia
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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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Cuban Smugglers
"The lucrative but dangerous business of smuggling Cubans into the United States is highly organized and growing fast. It is financed mostly by Cuban-American families in South Florida and involves smugglers and financiers in the Miami area, along with arrangers and transporters in Cuba and Mexico." Coast Guards in the United States, Havana, and Cuba are "frustrated by what they see as a national security threat as hundreds of boats a year come from Florida to pick up passengers illegally on the Cuban coast."
Tags: Cuba; illegal immigrants; smuggling; Mexico; Havana; Florida
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Bitter Pills
"Medicines for cancer, cholesterol, blood pressure - even the front-line defense against bird flu - are being counterfeited by international rings." Dateline NBC examines how "loopholes in existing government regulations have allowed the fakes to reach U.S. drug stores - even major chains like CVS and Rite Aid." The investigation into this potential health risk found, among other things, a cocaine smuggler who now counterfeits Lipitor "because there was less risk and more money." Also, photos of counterfeit operations revealed some "based in caves, others using drywall, cement and highway paint among their ingredients."
Tags: Counterfeit drugs; counterfeit medicines; drug tracking; health risks
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The Human Smuggler
The authors investigated an extensive human trafficking ring operating out of Denver.
Tags: Human smuggling; human trafficking; Denver; illegal immigration