Paper Trail Media is an investigative start-up based in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

. The editorial team, founded in 2022 by two

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

winners,

Bastian Obermayer Bastian Obermayer (born 10 December 1977) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning German investigative journalist with the Munich-based newspaper ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (SZ) and the reporter who received the Panama Papers from an anonymous source as well ...

and

Frederik Obermaier Frederik Obermaier (born 1 March 1984) is a German investigative journalist for the Munich-based newspaper, ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'', and author. Together with his colleague Bastian Obermayer in 2016 he initiated and coordinated the Panama Pape ...

, works for the news magazine

Der Spiegel (, , stylized in all caps) is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of about 724,000 copies in 2022, it is one of the largest such publications in Europe. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

ZDF ZDF (), short for (; ), is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. Launched on 1 April 1963, it is run as an independent nonprofit institution, and was founded by all federal states of Germany ( ...

, the Austrian daily newspaper

Der Standard ''Der Standard'' () is an Austrian daily newspaper published in Vienna. It is considered a newspaper of record for Austria. History and profile ''Der Standard'' was founded by Oscar Bronner as a financial newspaper and published its first editio ...

and the Swiss

Tamedia group TX Group AG (formerly Tamedia AG) is a media company headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. Through a portfolio of daily and weekly newspapers, magazines and digital platforms, as well as own printing facilities, it is the largest media group in ...

. With Obermayer and Obermaier as well as the Austrian Christo Buschek, a total of three Pulitzer Prize winners work for Paper Trail Media - more than in any other European media company.

Well-known employees

*Sophia Baumann *Christo Buschek *Maria Christopher *Hannes Munzinger *Frederik Obermaier *Bastian Obermayer *Hakan Tanriverdi

Xinjiang Police Files

In 2023, the Paper Trail Media journalists Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer, together with the Der Spiegel journalist Christoph Giesen, initiated the

Xinjiang Police Files The Xinjiang Police Files are leaked documents from the Xinjiang internment camps, forwarded to anthropologist Adrian Zenz from an anonymous source. On May 24, 2022, an international consortium of 14 media groups published information about th ...

research into the mass internment of

Uyghurs The Uyghurs,. alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central Asia and East Asia. The Uyghurs are recognized as the ti ...

Xinjiang Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC romanization, SASM/GNC: Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People' ...

. These were taken up by, among others, the UN human rights representative

Michelle Bachelet Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria (; born 29 September 1951) is a Chilean politician who served as President of Chile from 2006 to 2010 and again from 2014 to 2018, becoming the first woman to hold the presidency. She was re-elected in December ...

in her criticism of the Chinese government.

Vulkan Files

Paper Trail Media coordinated the

Vulkan files leak The Vulkan files are a leaked set of emails, and other documents, implicating the Russian company NTC Vulkan () in acts of cybercrime, political interference in foreign affairs (such as in the 2016 United States presidential election) through soc ...

revelations together with Spiegel in 2023 . More than 50 journalists - including from

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

and

Le Monde (; ) is a mass media in France, French daily afternoon list of newspapers in France, newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average print circulation, circulation of 480,000 copies per issue in 2022, including ...

- analyzed top secret data from the Russian company

NTC Vulkan The Vulkan files are a leaked set of emails, and other documents, implicating the Russian company NTC Vulkan () in acts of cybercrime, political interference in foreign affairs (such as in the 2016 United States presidential election) through soc ...

, which produces software for hacking attacks and disinformation campaigns for Russian secret services.

Cyprus Confidential

In collaboration with the

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Inc. (ICIJ), is an independent global network of 280 investigative journalists and over 140 media organizations spanning more than 100 countries. It is based in Washington, D.C., with ...

, Paper Trail Media examined over 3 million documents from Cyprus as part of the

Cyprus Confidential Cyprus Confidential is a journalism project investigating financial services in Cyprus and their role in allowing avoidance of international sanctions, and implementation of Russian state goals. It is conducted by the International Consortium of In ...

investigation about shell companies through which, among other things, covert payments were made to the journalist , and the oligarch

Alexei Mordashov Alexey Alexandrovich Mordashov (; born 26 September 1965) is a Russian businessman. He is the main shareholder and chairman of Severstal, Russia's largest steel and mining company. As of 2025, he is the wealthiest man in Russia with an estimate ...

tried to circumvent sanctions from the European Union Union against Russia.

Other projects

The team has also been involved with Deforestation_Inc., the 'StoryKillers' project, and Russian Asset Tracker.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Paper Trail Media Investigative journalism