Gwendolyn “Wendy” Green, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires, recently paid tribute to Mr. Matthew Caruana Galizia, an award-winning investigative journalist, as the U.S. Embassy’s nominee for the U.S. Secretary of State’s International Anticorruption Champions award.
This award honors individuals who have worked tirelessly, often in the face of adversity, to defend transparency, combat corruption, and ensure accountability in their own countries.
The U.S. Embassy selected Mr. Caruana Galizia because of his work exposing financial crime, money laundering, and tax evasion. Mr. Caruana Galizia was a lead engineer in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ (ICIJ) investigations into six major global corruption investigations: Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, Luxembourg Leaks, Fatal Extraction, Panama Papers, and Paradise Papers. In 2017, the ICIJ, including Mr. Caruana Galizia and his colleagues, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. His work was instrumental in compelling governments to fulfill their commitments to international anticorruption standards.