The Illicit Finance Data Lab's Phase One Report

Today, thanks to the increasing availability of massive public and leaked datasets, we have an unprecedented opportunity to devise smarter approaches to fighting organised crime and corruption.

But breakthroughs won’t happen without new forms of coordinated action.

The Illicit Finance Data Lab was established by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and the Anti-Corruption Data Collective in December 2025 to help scale up meaningful collaboration between investigtive 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.

This report shares valuable findings and insights from the first phase of the Data Lab, providing important context for why journalist-researcher collaborations are essential in furthering the fight against global financial crime and corruption. 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.