Pawel Smolenski

Pawel Smolenski, "Poland, has been a reporter for the leading Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza in Warsaw since 1992. Smolenski reports on national and international politics and transnational crime. In 1999, Smolenski pieced together the story behind the assassination of Poland's former police chief, Gen. Marek Papala. Smolenski showed that Papala was killed apparently for discovering key links in the Turkish-Polish heroin trade, allegedly involving government officials, politicians, businessmen, public figures, and organized crime. In 1991, Smolenski investigated the "Iron Affair," a secret operation by the Polish government in the 1960s, in which large amounts of stolen gold, jewelry, and other precious goods were smuggled into the country."

• Member, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists