The CumEx Files is an international collaborative research project led by CORRECTIV. Investigative journalists from around the world worked together to reveal how a global network of lawyers, bankers, stock traders and the super-rich made huge profits from tax fraud. Our evidence includes leaked emails and business plans, expert opinions from law firms and more. These documents show how rich fraudsters swindled lofty capital gains tax refunds without having paid them beforehand. Those involved stole billions of taxpayer euros from citizens around the world, all while referring to the fraud as a tax loophole.
With its initial publication in 2018, the CumEx Files established the first-ever estimate of the cost of cum-ex fraud in Europe: 55 billion euros, stolen. The largest tax scam in European history. A team of 18 media partners across a dozen European countries spent a year investigating the leaked documents alongside CORRECTIV.
Three years later, the CumEx Files 2.0 opens a new chapter: new data leaks, new protagonists, new tax tricks, and a new sum: €150 billion euros. And this time, we worked with research partners from around the world. Under CORRECTIV’s leadership, journalists from five continents expose not just the cost of fraud, but also how little legislators and law enforcement have achieved in the fight against CumEx trades and bringing criminals to justice.
In the last few years, the CumEx fraud has become even more complicated and sophisticated. It has been upgraded. But so has our investigative cooperation, the CumEx Files.