The Ulanbek Egizbaev Prize, a top journalism award in Kyrgyzstan, has been awarded earlier this week to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and Kloop for two articles they jointly wrote together. First place prize went to a series of 2019 investigative articles named “Plunder and Patronage in the Heart of Central Asia,” which revealed a vast operation led by top customs officials in Kyrgyzstan to steal more than US$700 million from that country. These articles, along with the assassination of the main whistle blower in the case, led to mass protests and calls for anti-corruption reforms. Second place prize went to a piece titled “Public Land, Private Hands” that exposed illegal appropriations of a public park in the nation’s capital, Bishkek. The article chronicled how from 2000 to 2008 Kyrgyzstan authorities secretly cut up and gave away a large part of the park to 173 people, despite laws against such appropriations.

You can read the articles here & here.