Dataharvest 2026 - the European Investigative Journalism Conference

Analysts estimate that at least $28 billion tied to illicit activity has flowed into cryptocurrency exchanges over the last two years. ICIJ's Coin Laundry investigation, in collaboration with 37 media partners, exposed part of this shadow financial system, collecting dozens of cryptocurrency wallet addresses and uncovering hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of illicit funds linked to suspected criminals, including a Cambodian conglomerate that facilitated money laundering for hackers and scam compound operators.

In this hands-on session, the panelists will explain how any reporter can use open source resources as well as advanced techniques to investigate major crypto exchanges, find leads, and "follow the crypto." The session will blend an intro showing the kinds of stories you can do on crypto, starting from scratch, the kinds of tools you can use, and then show how we use those tools to compile the data for analysis.