2026 Guardian Award: Drew Sullivan and Paul Radu
/
Each year, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) presents the Guardian Award to journalists whose pursuit of the truth has significantly contributed to the fight against fraud.
This year, the honor goes to Drew Sullivan and Paul Radu, co-founders of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), whose groundbreaking investigative work has exposed corruption, organized crime and financial fraud across borders.
Since founding OCCRP in 2007, Sullivan and Radu built the organization into one of the world’s leading investigative journalism networks. Through cross-border collaborations, innovative reporting techniques and data-driven investigations, OCCRP has helped uncover complex criminal schemes and hold powerful individuals and institutions accountable. Under their leadership, OCCRP has received numerous international honors, and its work on the Panama Papers with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists contributed to the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. Most recently, OCCRP’s collaboration with The Boston Globe on the Steward Health Care investigation was named a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service.
Drew Sullivan, OCCRP’s co-director and publisher, has spent decades advancing investigative journalism and strengthening the organizations that support it. Prior to co-founding OCCRP, he founded and served as editor for the Center for Investigative Reporting in Bosnia-Herzegovina and worked as an investigative reporter for The Tennessean and the Associated Press’s Special Assignment Team.
Under Sullivan’s leadership, OCCRP has earned numerous distinctions, including the Maria Ressa Prize for Courage in Investigative Journalism, the Missouri Honor Medal, the Global Shining Light Award, the Tom Renner Award for Crime Reporting, the European Press Prize, and the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. He has also served on the boards of Investigative Reporters and Editors, the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, and Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism.
Beyond reporting, Sullivan has worked to strengthen and protect investigative journalism worldwide. He helped create Reporters Shield, a membership program designed to defend journalists against strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) and other forms of legal harassment. He also helped to build Floodlight, which connects investigative reporting with the entertainment industry, and Revenue Axis, which helps investigative news organizations strengthen their financial sustainability. In 2022, he served as co-executive producer of the award-winning documentary “The Killing of a Journalist.”
Paul Radu, OCCRP’s co-founder and head of innovation, has pioneered investigative techniques and technologies that help journalists uncover complex financial crime and corruption. He initiated and led the award-winning Russian, Azerbaijani and Troika Laundromat investigations and coined the term “laundromat” to describe large-scale financial fraud vehicles used to move illicit funds. He is also a co-creator of Investigative Dashboard and Visual Investigative Scenarios, tools that help journalists trace people, companies, assets and criminal networks through complex datasets.
Radu has received the Daniel Pearl Award, the Global Shining Light Award, the European Press Prize and the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. He was part of the Panama Papers team that received the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Journalism. An Ashoka Global Fellow, Radu has authored and contributed to several publications on investigative reporting and anti-corruption efforts, including “The Data Journalism Handbook” and “Follow the Money: A Digital Guide to Tracking Corruption.” He serves on the board of the Global Investigative Journalism Network, is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and contributes to several international journalism and data reporting initiatives.
Together, Sullivan and Radu have helped redefine investigative journalism by fostering unprecedented collaboration among reporters, news organizations and technology experts. Their commitment to transparency, accountability and public-interest reporting has strengthened efforts to expose corruption and financial crime while inspiring a new generation of investigative journalists.
You can read more about their work and OCCRP’s growth in Fraud Magazine.
The ACFE is proud to recognize Drew Sullivan and Paul Radu’s contributions to investigative journalism and the fight against fraud with the 2026 Guardian Award, which will be presented at the 37th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference, July 12–17, 2026.
