More than a year after Slovak investigative reporter Ján Kuciak and his fiancee were assassinated in their home, one of the country’s richest men has been charged with ordering their murders. The allegations against Marian Kočner, who has been jailed since June in connection with financial crimes — some of which Kuciak had investigated and...
In a nondescript shopping mall in the industrial outskirts of Venice, a major new European drug route is taking shape. Antonino Vadalà, a hot-headed man who dominates the room, sizes up his potential partner, a local businessman he hopes will help him import hundreds of kilos of cocaine into northern Italy and Slovakia. The plan...
The offer was straightforward and financially attractive: Kill a man in return for 50,000 euros in cash and the forgiveness of more than 20,000 euros in debt. Zoltán Andruskó, a Slovak pizzeria operator, quickly accepted – a decision that forever changed both his life and the history of Slovakia. The woman Andruskó said offered the...
The Balkan mafias were the first major crime syndicates to come to Slovakia, following people from the region who had been invited to work and study there during the communist era. As their businesses spread across their new homeland, so did their influence, which they used to dominate the only organized criminal industries possible under...
The Implant Files is a global investigation that tracks the harm caused by medical devices that have been tested inadequately or not at all. Led by editors and reporters from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, it took a year to plan and another year to complete. ICIJ partnered with more than 250 journalists in 36...
When he was murdered by an unknown assassin earlier this year, Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak was part of an international team looking into foreign drug smugglers suspected of laundering money in his country. In the wake of his death, the team has continued reporting, uncovering more about the criminal group and how it operated. The...