Forbidden Stories

About the network

Forbidden Stories is an international global network of journalists, founded in 2017 by Laurent Richard, an award-winning French journalist and documentary film-maker. As it is vital for democracies that the press can investigate and expose environmental crimes, corruption, surveillance, organized crime, disinformation, and human rights violations, the organisation aims to ensure access to information of public interest and tries to protects the work of threatened journalists, pursuing the investigations of silenced reporters.

More than 300 journalists collaborated with Forbidden Stories and it has 54 media partners from five continents while cooperated with 123 media organisations since its foundation of The media partners are listed here.

Forbidden Stories focuses its collaborative global investigations on five primary core domains: cyber-surveillance, disinformation and election manipulation, environmental crime, government corruption, and war-zone violence against the press. Operating under the guiding principle that “killing the journalist won’t kill the story,” the network coordinates international newsrooms to pick up and finish sensitive assignments when local reporters are murdered, jailed, or threatened.

The primary thematic areas of their investigations encompass the following topics:

Cyber-Surveillance & Spyware

• The Pegasus Project: Exposed how invasive spyware manufactured by the Israeli company NSO Group was deployed by governments to hack the phones of over 180 journalists, alongside human rights activists and heads of state.
• Eyes of Iran: Revealed the secret capabilities and mechanics of the Iranian regime’s expansive electronic surveillance network used to track its own citizens.

 

Disinformation & Influence Operations

• Story Killers Project: Unmasked a highly coordinated, profitable, global “disinformation-for-hire” industry that uses mercenary entities to manipulate elections, destroy public reputations, and target vocal journalists.
• Propaganda Machine: Unearthed leaked internal files detailing clandestine Russian networks (including post-Prigozhin intelligence operations) aiming to plant media narratives and buy political influence across Latin America and the Sahel region of Africa.
• State Utility Interference: Uncovered strategies used by state-backed entities, such as Indonesia’s PLN energy company, which utilized disinformation and bribery to push through local geothermal projects against public opposition.

 

Environmental Crimes & Mining

• Green Blood & Mining Secrets: Followed the breadcrumbs left by dozens of murdered environmental reporters to reveal the high human and ecological toll of the global sand, nickel, and gold mining industries across India, Guatemala, and Tanzania.
• Lords of Gold & Toxic Gold: Documented the destructive nature of illegal gold rushes in Peru and Ghana, detailing how violent local drug cartels and gangs heavily control the supply chains.
• Deforestation: Investigated corporate-led environmental damage and illegal logging, notably tackling the deadly code of silence surrounding mass deforestation in Cambodia.

 

Government Corruption & Organized Crime

• The Daphne Project: Continued the anti-corruption reporting of assassinated Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, mapping systemic money laundering and political cronyism in Malta.
• The Cartel Project: Took up the work of murdered Mexican reporter Regina Martínez to track the global reach of the Sinaloa and Veracruz drug cartels, chemical precursor supply lines in Asia, and illicit European weapons sales to corrupt local authorities.
• State Failures: Exposed deep-rooted state collapses, such as gang dominance and predatory governance in Haiti, alongside political assassinations and prosecutor failures in Paraguay.

 

War-Zone Journalism & Human Rights

• The Gaza Project: Coordinated a cross-border investigation into the deaths of nearly 100 media workers in Gaza, using 3D modeling and satellite analysis to prove that the Israeli military systemically targeted identifiable press members.
• The Viktoriia Project: Investigated human rights abuses, civilian blockades, and war crimes linked to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
• Forced Labour & Silence: Traced the forced labour networks in Central Asian cotton fields (such as Turkmenistan) and investigated systemic sexual violence used to silence dissidents under the Taliban in Afghanistan.

See the list of the latest investigations here.

Website:
https://forbiddenstories.org/

Contact:
https://forbiddenstories.org/contact/

 

Contact

Website: https://forbiddenstories.org/