The Scam empire team

The Scam empire team was selected for the 2026 Shortlist with Scam empire.

Scam Empire is a major cross-border investigation offering an unparalleled insight into the global investment-scam industry.

A collaborative effort by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), Swedish Television (SVT), and over 30 global media partners, it is based on an unprecedented leak of nearly two terabytes of data.

The investigation pulled back the curtain on two groups of call centers based in Israel, Europe and the country of Georgia, showing that together they defrauded at least 32,000 people out of more than $275 million since 2021.

Leaked information included tens of thousands of hours of phone calls between scammers and their victims, as well as screen recordings and spreadsheets, revealing how call center employees used tactics, including false identities, forged paperwork, and deceptive advertising to lure victims into handing over money for imaginary “investments”.

Reporters also traced the broader business ecosystem enabling the scams. This included unregulated payment processors, tech providers that kept operations running, and third-party marketing firms that brought in victims. The investigation revealed how a sophisticated network of legitimate-seeming vendors and platforms helped this illicit industry flourish — often with little regulatory oversight.

On the opposite end were the victims. Many had harrowing stories of being pushed to their mental and financial limits by scammers. They told of crippling debt, trauma, and an inability to trust strangers. Several said they had contemplated suicide.

Altogether these findings formed a comprehensive investigation that illuminated an industry built entirely on deception, one of the clearest views yet into how global investment scams operate.

Contributors:

Project Coordination: Joachim Dyfvermark (SVT); Antonio Baquero (OCCRP), Kelly Bloss (OCCRP), Lawrence Marzouk (OCCRP)

Journalists: Lorenzo Bagnoli (IRPIMedia), Sophia Baumann (Paper Trail Media), Lars Bové (De Tijd), Tom Bolsius (Follow The Money), Julian Bonnici (Amphora Media), Jacob Borg (Times of Malta), Inese Braže (Re:Baltica), Luc Caregari (Reporter.lu), Lindita Cela, Šarūnas Černiauskas (Siena), Maria Cheresheva (OCCRP), Atanas Chobanov (Bird), Riccardo Coluccini (IRPIMedia), Andreas Cosma (CIReN), Turgut Denizgil (CIReN), Paul Émile d’Entremont (CBC/Radio-Canada), Victoria Denys (Le Monde), Pamela Duncan (The Guardian), Karim El Hadj (Le Monde), Ester Eriksson (Qurium), Margaux Farran (OCCRP), Eiliv Frich Flydal (VG), Juliette Garside (The Guardian), Michael Goodier (The Guardian), Simon Goodley (The Guardian), Mariia Horban (Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty), Eva Jung (Berlingske), SannaKlinghoffer (SVT), Minna Knus-Galán (YLE), Remy Koens (Follow The Money), Lukas Kotkamp (Follow The Money), Miglė Krancevičiūtė (Siena.lt), Moritz Kudermann (ZDF), Damien Leloup (Le Monde), Tord Lundström (Qurium), Christodoulos Mavroudis (CIReN), Gur Megiddo, Bastian Obermayer (Paper Trail Media), Gisle Oddstad (VG), Marta Orosz (ZDF); Stelios Orphanides (OCCRP), Greete Palgi (Delfi), Begoña P. Ramírez (Infolibre), Daiva Repeckaite (Amphora Media), Florian Reynaud (Le Monde), Laurent Schmit (Reporter.lu), Graham Stack (OCCRP), Holger Roonemaa (OCCRP), Iulia Stănoiu (Context.ro), Tom Stocks (OCCRP), Dimitar Stoyanov (Bird), Nora Thorp Bjørnstad (VG), Alexis Troma (Le Monde), Björn Tunbäck (SVT), Kornelija Ukolovaitė (Siena.lt), Romy van der Burgh (Investico), Linda van der Pol (Investico), Dewald van Rensburg (AmaBhungane), Simona Weinglass (OCCRP), Zoe Wood (The Guardian), Emma Wright (OCCRP), Jeff Yates (CBC/Radio-Canada), Frédéric Zalac (CBC/Radio-Canada), Kira Zalan (OCCRP).

Six Georgian journalists contributed vital reporting to this project but cannot be named for security reasons.

The OCCRP Project Team

Publications:

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and SVT (Sweden), with AmaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism (South Africa), Amphora Media (Malta), Berlingske (Denmark), Bird (Bulgaria), CBC/Radio-Canada (Canada), CIReN (Cyprus), Context.ro (Romania), Delfi (Estonia), Der Spiegel (Germany), Der Standard (Austria), Follow The Money (Netherlands), Infolibre (Spain), Investico (Netherlands), IRPIMedia (Italy), iFact (Georgia), Le Monde (France), Paper Trail Media (Germany), Qurium (Sweden), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Ukrainian service (Ukraine), Re:Baltica (Latvia), Reporter.lu (Luxembourg), Siena.lt (Latvia), Studio Monitori (Georgia), De Tijd (Belgium), The Guardian (U.K.), Times of Malta (Malta), The Governance Monitoring Center (Georgia), VG (Norway), YLE (Finland), and ZDF(Germany)

Credit: James O'Brien, OCCRP