Center for Investigative Reporting (CIN)

The Center for Investigative Reporting, Centar za istraživačko novinarstvo, (CIN) is a non-profit investigative center that writes about problems in Bosnia and Herzegovina especially and organized crime. It is based in Sarajevo but covers much of the Balkan region. Its stories appear in local media including Oslobođenje, Vecernji list, EuroBlic, Dnevni Avaz, Start Magazin, and other publications. It also operates an online publication called "Izvor" or The Source and distributes an English language newsletter.

CIN was formed in 2004 under a grant by USAID and is funded by various government and non-profit sources as well as some commercial revenues. CIN stories use international standards for investigative reporting and it tries to avoid unnamed sources and other practices common in regional media. CIN stories are rigorously fact checked.

Its staff of 10 reporters have reported on corrupt energy traders, prime ministers who get almost free apartments, stolen privatizations, cigarette and drug smugglers, diploma mill universities and other corrupt practices. CIN's work has led to arrests, firings, investigations and even jailings.

One of CIN's better known stories looked at how then BiH Federation Prime Minister Nedžad Branković got an almost free apartment. CIN detailed each step of the process with records showing how the Prime Minister selected the apartment, the government bought it, moved it into an inventory of excess apartments and then allowed the Prime Minister to privatize it for nearly worthless privatization script—all in the matter of a few weeks. CIN's work, which involved finding a second sources of documents that had been removed from the official records, led to two investigations of Brankovic and then an indictment by cantonal prosecutors. A citizens group plastered the town with graffiti and later billboards protesting Brankovic's windfall. He resigned in June 2009 after he lost power in his own political party.

The center also was a founding member of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a regional consortium of investigative centers, journalists and news organizations who report on transnational organized crime.

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