A billion-euro carbon credit scam, forced-labor tomatoes and fraud in Belgium's social allowances
Issue 2 of the EBU Investigative Journalism Network newsletter
Welcome to the second edition of the EBU Investigative Journalism Network’s newsletter! Here you can find top investigative stories, learn how EBU partner newsrooms work, and find upcoming events.
Read on to find out how BBC traced “Italian” tomato purees to forced labor camps in Xinjiang, the sale in Irish black market of a dangerous weight loss drug and discover where one billion euro of German carbon credits disappeared in a massive scam. We also offer an inside look into our Belgian partner, VRT’s investigative team with Editor-in-chief Pascal Seynhaeve.
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Multiple brands in British and German supermarkets offer ‘Italian’ tomato purees, but this BBC investigation revealed that the contents of many have originated from China’s Xinjiang region. Reporters from the BBC World Service commissioned testing, went undercover in Italian factories and interviewed 14 people who said they endured or witnessed forced labor in Xinjiang’s tomato fields over the past 16 years.
Irish people can easily access weight loss drug Retatrutide, which has no approval from health authorities, this investigation revealed. RTÉ discovered and filmed one woman who advertised and sold the drug to online customers. Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of Retatrutide confirmed that the drug has not been approved in Europe, or anywhere else globally. The sale of this drug, and others, under the well-known brand, “may expose patients to potentially serious health risks" Eli Lilly said.
German authorities approved dozens of climate projects in China that allowed firms to receive carbon credits to fulfil their climate targets without reducing emissions themselves. A joint investigation between our German partners DW and ZDF found that some of these projects are likely part of a criminal plot worth roughly €1 billion between 2020 and 2024. Based on documentation from auditing companies and satellite imagery, the investigation found that 16 out of 66 Chinese projects approved by the German Environment Agency were likely fraudulent.
In Brussels, Anderlecht’s municipality has given away state welfare support to people who didn’t qualify, this VRT investigation showed. VRT submitted incomplete applications and sent undercover agents to the interviews. Despite not meeting the requirements, and containing suspicious details, both were granted support. Whistleblowers from inside the service also spoke to VRT about their massive workload, and recipients of the funds spoke of receiving subsidies in exchange for votes.
Our partners’ newsrooms: The VRT investigative journalism team
VRT’s award-winning investigative team was founded in 2016. Today, the unit has 25 members, including journalists, researchers, production and director assistants and two editors in chief, Sara Van Boxstael and Pascal Seynhaeve. They cater to the five million Flemish-speaking Belgians.
They produce multi-format stories, including online articles, radio pieces and 15 45-minute documentaries which are broadcast on several VRT NWS news programs, including VRT PANO (short for Panorama).
VRT’s investigations were awarded Belgium’s prestigious Belfius Press Award five times, have won the Association for International Broadcasting’s awards and were nominated several times for the Prix Europa.
Free online EBU Academy event: For The Record: Covering War and Conflict
In collaboration with the training experts from the Thompson Foundation, Eurovision News created this course to help reporters, and their team navigate war zones around the globe. This free, self-paced online course will go into the legal and ethical considerations of war coverage, logistical challenges, physical and mental safety.
Find out more, and enrol in the ongoing course on the EBU Academy.
We’d love to hear your feedback, and we welcome any investigative stories you’d like to see in our next newsletter. Please send us your links via email or Signal.
