“Panama Papers” wins Scripps Howard business journalism award

“The Panama Papers” has won the William Brewster Styles Award from the Scripps Howard Foundation for the best business and economics reporting from 2016.

The report was compiled by The Center for Public Integrity, McClatchy and the Miami Herald.

Journalists from nearly 80 countries speaking dozens of languages joined forces to delve into 11.5 million files, 214,000 offshore entities and almost 40 years of records, collectively known as “The Panama Papers.” The trove of leaked documents came from a Panama-headquartered law firm that establishes offshore accounts for its clients.

It exposed offshore hideaways tied to mega-banks, corporate bribery scandals, drug kingpins, arms traffickers and a network of people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin that shuffled as much as $2 billion around the world.

Since the investigation, governments and corporations in 79 countries have opened at least 150 inquiries, audits or investigations.

Finalists in the category were “Amazon, Customers’ Race” by David Ingold and Spencer Soper with Bloomberg Businessweek and “Infuse” by Joe Carlson, Jim Spencer and MaryJo Webster with Star Tribune (Minneapolis).

See all of the winners here.