Financial crime and corruption drain trillions of dollars annually from economies worldwide, undermining public trust and starving essential services of funding.
Today, thanks to the increasing availability of massive public and leaked datasets, we have an unprecedented opportunity to devise smarter approaches to fighting financial crime and corruption. But breakthroughs won’t happen without new forms of coordinated action.
The Illicit Finance Data Lab was established by OCCRP and the Anti-Corruption Data Collective in December 2025 to help scale up meaningful collaboration between investigative journalists and academic researchers, which until now has been relatively rare.
If these two groups of actors can use leaked and public data to produce stronger reporting and research, then policymakers, law enforcement, and the private sector will have the evidence and insight they need to act more effectively.
A new report shares valuable findings and insights from the first phase of the Data Lab, which has advanced 11 specific collaborations in its first three months, an uptake that demonstrates the active demand for this type of engagement.
Combining the Data Lab’s own research with extensive input from the anti-corruption community, the report examines the most pressing challenges facing data-led investigative collaborations, spanning legal, ethical, data processing and funding issues, as well as cultural differences, and offers some of the solutions to these challenges identified during the start-up phase.
Journalists and academics working on illicit finance already tackle many of the same themes. The report identifies priority topics where both of these groups expressed strong demand for cooperation: cryptocurrency, beneficial ownership and property data, professional enablers of corruption (such as accountants and lawyers), sanctions evasion, disinformation, and scam networks.
In the months ahead, the Data Lab will produce additional guidance on practical challenges to cooperation, convene working groups on the property and cryptocurrency themes, and continue brokering more than a dozen active collaborations.
Flows of dirty money pose an urgent and highly complex challenge to people, politics, and the planet. Responding to it requires a joined-up ecosystem that shares skills, expertise, data, and evidence while respecting professional boundaries. The Data Lab is a new but essential part of this landscape and works to build a resilient anti-corruption network.
Visit the Illicit Finance Data Lab to download the full report.
