Career

Roman Anin is an investigative reporter who has shed light on Russia’s rampant corruption and demonstrated how it reaches far beyond the country’s borders.

He began his career in 2006 as a sports writer for the daily Novaya Gazeta but was soon moved to the newspaper’s investigative unit, where he uncovered scandal after scandal. His reports have revealed corruption and cronyism in the military, politics and business, including construction contracts for the Sochi Olympic Games.

Five journalists at Novaya Gazeta have been murdered for their work since 2000, but Anin has continued to investigate and document high-level corruption in Russia and globally through his work with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

Anin’s investigative work over a five-year period led to documents and data showing that nearly $1 billion had vanished from Russia’s budget. It ended up in a maze of offshore accounts and shell companies throughout Europe.

His work also led to investigative reports in the Financial Times, the BBC and Sveriges Television (SVT), Sweden’s public broadcaster. SVT collaborated with Anin on a story that revealed corruption in a deal between Swedish telecom TeliaSonera and the daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov. The report led to the resignation of the telecom’s CEO.

He was a member of the Panama Papers investigative team that received the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting in 2017 and also worked on the Paradise Papers investigation.

In 2018 he became a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University where his research was focused on how might investigative reporters automate some of their basic tasks.

Roman Anin majored in journalism at Moscow State University (MSU) and graduated in 2010.

Stories

Though they no longer shadow his every step, in some ways these men are closer to Putin than ever. Over the past five years, they and many of their colleagues have become a powerful new political clan wholly devoted to the president. Once responsible simply for physical safety, they have become governors, ministers, and administrators of the president’s affairs.

Read this story

In his public life, he’s a recognized master musician, a Russian People’s Artist and professor. His other incarnation is as a lifelong friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin amd owner of the hidden trusts and offshore companies that moved around billions of dollars, funneled “donations” from Russia’s richest businessmen into palaces and investments.

Read this story

We agreed to meet next to Vienna’s Grand Hotel in October 2016. On a sunny fall day, he waited on the street by the entrance — tall and almost bald, dressed in jeans, a tight black shirt, and a leather jacket. “Aslan,” he said. That was my introduction to Aslan Gagiyev, who had created a criminal group, called the Family, which is accused of committing 60 murders.

Read this story

A murky Russian businessman that formerly ran a state property agency has been buying apartments in Moscow for a number of young women that include the daughter of Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin; Putin’s alleged girlfriend; and a woman who, in a flirty web posting titled “Pussy for Putin,” offers the Russian leader a kitten and praises his leadership skills.

Read this story

Awards