Before we start in earnest this week, I have two great pieces of news. 

First, you helped us beat our fundraising target. We participated in the Big Give crowdfunding campaign to produce journalism that protects democracy and holds the powerful to account. And in just a week, we raised more than £20,000 thanks to supporters and the Big Give, which matched every donation we got.

And then, on Thursday evening, we won a British Journalism Award – an amazing result for a team with far fewer resources than the newsrooms we were up against. It couldn’t be for a more urgent subject, either: the ability of the rich and powerful to silence scrutiny.

It’s worth telling you how we got here. When Eleanor Rose applied to become the editor of our Enablers team – which investigates how UK systems are used by kleptocrats and gangsters – she came to the interview with a maverick idea.

Could we figure out how UK laws were shutting down legitimate coverage of corporations and billionaires? Could we find real-life instances where this had happened before something had even made it out into the open? We already know about the legal threats that happen when something is public.

Spoiler alert: Eleanor got the job, and we immediately greenlit the project. She, Lucy Nash and Ed Siddons spoke to everyone and anyone, trying to figure out how deep the problem went. They uncovered how powerful people like Mohamed Al-Fayed had used libel threats to squash scrutiny around allegations of sexual assault, fraud, corruption and exploitation.

Then, with a bundle of stories under their arm, they headed to Westminster. MPs were just as shocked as we were, and a group of them from across all the major parties organised a half-day debate to spotlight the problem. One after the other they got up and read out the harrowing accounts, as we watched it on the office TV. Everyone was riveted by what was being said – and proud that we had helped get the truth out. A genuine goosebumps moment.

So it was wonderful that Lucy and Eleanor were able to collect the award for Innovation of the Year on Thursday night. The judges said: “This was a clever approach to bringing stories out into the open which is responsible and repeatable, and which serves the public interest.”

While we’re on transparency, I was asked on Monday to speak alongside a few MPs and policy experts on that very subject. I told them about Yevgeny Prigozhin, the man known as “Putin’s chef”, who used the UK courts to sue a journalist who had tweeted the widely confirmed fact that Prigozhin was a mercenary. The case was eventually kicked out of court. But by that point it had cost Higgins (the journalist) tens of thousands of pounds. I was trying to explain that the system is perfectly set up to be abused – and it needs to change.

And as I was standing outside the Royal Courts of Justice, I got the news that the justice secretary, David Lammy, had promised to do something about abusive libel threats … by 2029. That’s what you call kicking the can down the road.

Then my phone pinged again. A court case that we had applied for access to – in which a lawyer was being prosecuted for an allegedly bogus legal threat – had delivered its verdict. It had been held behind closed doors, barring public scrutiny. We’d challenged the decision, but the tribunal didn’t want to hear it. And on Monday afternoon, in a secret case where lawyers argued about the conduct of other lawyers, the lawyer was cleared of all wrongdoing.

And the final blow to transparency: we got the news yesterday afternoon that a landmark prosecution of one of London’s leading libel lawyers has collapsed after a tribunal found there was no case to answer. I’ll tell you more about that soon. We need to unpick the details first. But it raises questions about how you can hold people hiding behind secret laws to account.

But we’ll continue the fight for transparency next year. If you want to be a part of that, and missed your chance to donate to our Christmas Big Give campaign, then why not become a member of the Bureau? 

We're ramping up our reporting next year, and your monthly support gives us the chance to plan ahead. You can join our community of members – the Bureau Insiders – today.

Factchecked!

Each week we reveal a fascinating fact from our reporting…

Did you know?

One in every five pairs of trainers in the world are made in a single port city in China.

Find out more

Of the thousands of workers who enter Jinjiang’s densely packed shoe factories every day, many are Uyghurs, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz. Often they have been brought there under duress.

We’ve found new evidence that suggests some companies are dodging the laws designed to block the import of goods tainted by the use of forced labour. 

Our recent report connects another dozen footwear factories to the programme, including some directly owned by famous sportswear brands.

Read more here.

Cocaine, corruption & colonialism

A good few years before she died, Queen Elizabeth II appointed a man in his late 30s as her representative in the British Virgin Islands, an archipelago in the Caribbean that remains a British overseas territory. 

Augustus James Ulysses Jaspert – Gus for short – arrived with his young family just before Hurricane Irma ripped across Tortola, the biggest of the islands.

As horrific as the destruction was, Gus would soon have far bigger problems as governor of the BVI – problems to do with drug-running, corruption and Britain’s colonial legacy in the islands. 

You can’t begin to understand why the BVI is a go-to place for kleptocrats and crooks to hide their stolen money without first understanding the unique history of the islands.

That’s what our reporter Ed Siddons went to investigate when he set off to Tortola this spring. The story he came back with is a gripping crime thriller and sharply researched feature all wrapped into one. It’s a great story, which also ran in the Guardian’s Long Read section this week.

And a special thanks goes to the Pulitzer Center, which helped us pay for Ed’s trip to the BVI.

An Indian company struck gold by making vital drugs affordable – but there’s a catch

Nobody should have to worry about whether the medicine they’re taking is reliable – and in a just and fair world, money shouldn’t be the deciding factor on whether or not you can access life-saving drugs.

Zee Laboratories, a company in India, prides itself on supplying generic drugs at knock-down prices. It makes a big song and dance about its high-quality credentials, too. 

But our latest investigation tells a different story. 

In collaboration with Context (part of the Thomson Reuters Foundation), we’ve revealed that Zee Labs’ drugs have failed at least 86 quality tests by Indian regulators. The problem spreads out across the world, too – regulators in Nigeria, Nepal and the Philippines have also raised red flags over the company’s products.

Zee Labs is facing multiple criminal cases and – if you can believe it – has even received a “stop production” order. Despite that, their drugs continue to be shipped and sold around the world.

Read the full story – and what Zee Labs have to say about it – by tapping the button.