Roman Shleynov, Russia, is an investigative observer at Vedomosti business daily, the Russian project of The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. Before October 2010 he worked as investigations editor at Novaya Gazeta and served as an editorial board member.
During his time at Novaya Gazeta, he has also worked as information section reporter, deputy head of information section, investigative reporter, and deputy investigations editor. Shleynov focuses almost exclusively on exposing the corrupt bonds between business and public officials. In 2008-09, he worked with ICIJ’s “Tobacco Underground” project. Shleynov and a team of two other journalists went to Kaliningrad to expose a secret chain of Russian factories dumping a $1 billion of smuggled cigarettes into the EU.
Shleynov is a member of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a venture of five news organizations and investigative reporting centers in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Its goal is to show how organized crime affects the lives of citizens in the region. For OCCRP, Shleynov coordinated the work of journalists in seven countries on a project called “Document Dilemma,” revealing how people can illegally obtain identity documents. For his work, Shleynov received one of two 2008 Transparency International Integrity Awards.
He also received Russian Union of Journalists awards in 2000 and 2003 as well as the Moscow Mayor’s Prize for Journalism in 2002.
