They Killed The Messenger, Not The Stories: The Daphne Project

Maltese journalist and blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed last year with a car bomb, just a few blocks outside of her house. The news shocked everyone. It wasn't just an ordinary murder. Her assassination aimed to silence her investigations on a wide variety of corruption-related topics. Caruana had been working to uncover shoddy deals between businessmen, politicians, and governments from other countries that have benefited from Malta's flexible laws and its offshore banking.

After her death, 18 news organisations and a team of 45 journalists in more than 15 countries decided to continue her work. They launched what is called The Daphne Project, and since April 17, many news organisations across Europe have been publishing a series of stories that reveal what Caruana was up against.

One of those reports exposes Malta's "passport for sale" program, known as the Golden Visas, where rich investors from countries like Russia ended up paying millions of dollars in bribes for a Maltese residence and citizenship. An FAIU report on the company that runs this program for the Maltese government tracked some of these transactions all the way to an account that belonged to the prime minister's chief of staff. This report is linked to another report, through a bank called Pilatus, through which Azerbaijan's ruling elite was fuelling millions of dollars to invest in property, hotels, businesses, etc. This, in turns, links to a third report on how Azerbaijan's state energy company won contracts to sell gas to Malta.

Forbidden Stories has reunited what many media organisations have published so far — in many languages and countries — and will continue to update the site and any news relevant to her murder case.