Corruption News

EAST LOMBOK, Indonesia – Takdir spent years protesting against the sand mine by his home on the east coast of Lombok, an island east of Bali in Indonesia’s West Nusa…

One of the world’s largest palm oil companies appears to have overseen a network of companies responsible for deforestation of tens of thousands of hectares, according to a new investigation…

JAKARTA — Indonesian fisheries authorities have welcomed as “better than nothing” a new policy by neighboring Singapore that should in theory help stem the smuggling of lobster larvae out of…

PHNOM PENH — “Make the bosses rich in Cambodia,” then-prime minister Hun Sen said at the 2012 inauguration of a sugar refinery in Kampong Speu province. “If a country has…

Tourists from around the world pay top dollar for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to hobnob with gorilla families in Uganda’s montane forests. Part of the rationale for the steep prices is…

This report was produced with the support of the Rainforest Investigations Network in partnership with the Pulitzer Center. LUBUMBASHI — In Kolwezi, the self-proclaimed cobalt capital of the world, 400…

This report was produced with the support of the Rainforest Journalism Fund in partnership with the Pulitzer Center. MOKOLO, Cameroon — The sun is already beating down this morning, a…

JAKARTA — Experts have slammed a court ruling that significantly slashes the fines imposed on Indonesian palm oil billionaire Surya Darmadi, even as it increased his jail sentence, in the…

JAKARTA — A court in Indonesia’s Riau province, the country’s palm oil heartland, has sentenced a high-ranking official to 12 years in prison for taking bribes in exchange for issuing…

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A flurry of subdecrees released through the end of July and early August show that the Cambodian government has approved he addition of more than a…

BATAM, Indonesia — Indonesian authorities have called on their counterparts in neighboring Singapore to crack down on the illegal lobster larvae trade, given that the city-state is a key hub…

PHNOM PENH — The Cambodian government has awarded another large swath of Botum Sakor National Park to local conglomerate Royal Group, carving out yet more land from this ostensibly protected…

JAKARTA — A million-dollar bribery case in Indonesia’s Riau province, the country’s palm oil heartland, has prompted calls for a wider investigation into corruption between business players and the local…

In 2020, 282 containers full of mixed waste bales sailed from Salerno, Italy, to Sousse, Tunisia, in four shipments. Italian customs did not raise any flags. Customs classified them as…

BOTUM SAKOR, Cambodia — Once Cambodia’s largest national park, Botum Sakor has shriveled under the gaze of tycoons, whose parcels of land have swallowed up more than 80% of the…

*Names have been changed to protect sources who said they feared reprisals from the authorities. BOTUM SAKOR, Cambodia — “We’ve filed complaints with four institutions now — the Ministry of…

This story is the third article of a three-part Mongabay mini-series exploring the link between Cambodia's garment factories and illegal logging. Read Part One and Part Two. KAMPONG SPEU, Cambodia…

Formed in 1938 on a swath of primary forest nearly four times the size of Paris, Nigeria’s Akure-Ofosu Forest Reserve is home to a diverse array of wildlife. These include…

JAKARTA — Indonesian prosecutors have charged three major palm oil companies in connection with a cooking oil shortage that rocked the world’s top producer of palm oil. The Attorney General’s…

The takeover of a polluting landfill in Colombia was supposed to help clean up the area for residents falling sick from exposure to toxic chemicals, but years later they say…

Earlier this year, 25 Congolese and international civil society organizations wrote a letter to the U.S. secretary of state, calling on the United States government to maintain sanctions against diamond…

In 2019, the last Sumatran rhino in Malaysia died. Her name was Iman and ever since her capture in 2014, she had been under the care of the Bornean Rhino…

“The challenge in the Nkok SIZ is timber traceability. The SIZ must be kept free of illegally obtained timber,” says Marc Ona, executive secretary of the NGO Brainforest. The NGO…

JAKARTA — The combination of weak antigraft policies, lack of transparency, revolving-door politics, and the prevalence of politically exposed persons within companies makes Indonesia’s palm oil industry highly prone to…

"In Indonesia, now, wherever you look there is corruption," the country’s Coordinating Minister for Politics and Security, Mohammad Mahfud Mahmodin (Mahfud MD), said in Kompas recently. His statement strengthens data on…

JAKARTA — Funds from illegal logging, mining and fishing are flowing into election campaigns in Indonesia, authorities have revealed. The announcement by the national anti-money-laundering watchdog, known as the PPATK,…

This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.   SIEM PANG, Cambodia — “Us locals cannot source benefits from the forest…

The resumption of work on the controversial EF-170 railway project — also known as the Ferrogrão — in the Brazilian Amazon has sparked demands for a proper consultation process from…

Between May 2021 and November 2022, more than 200,000 deforestation alerts covering a total of 2,700 hectares (6,670 acres) were recorded around Ouesso, the administrative seat of Sangha province, in…

Ahead of the presidential election in Brazil last October, deforestation in the Amazon reached its highest level in 15 years. Was this an anomaly, or part of a pattern? Are…