Investigations that trace financial flows end to end: who paid whom, when, through what entity, for what.
10 pieces
Two private companies, Securus Technologies and ViaPath, sit on nearly every prison and jail communications contract in the United States. The families of the incarcerated pay the bill, often at rates that would be illegal in any other consumer market. The FCC capped the rates in 2024. The contracts that produced the system remain.
When the U.S. Department of Commerce added NSO Group to the Entity List in November 2021, it was framed as a structural blow against the commercial-spyware industry. Four…
Hospital system consolidation in the United States has accelerated since 1998. The promise that drove the merger wave, and the regulatory approvals that allowed it, was that scale…
The American bail bond industry, alone among advanced democracies, lets a private insurer decide whether a person accused of a crime walks free or sits in jail. Two…
The Foreign Agents Registration Act database documents the structural rule of Washington's foreign-influence industry: contracts don't disappear after scandal. They migrate. The firms that lost Saudi clients in…
CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, and OptumRx process 4 of every 5 prescriptions filled in the United States. All three are owned by the same parent companies that own…
An internal Facebook memo from 2018 confirmed the algorithm was systematically amplifying outrage because outrage drove engagement. Frances Haugen brought it to the Senate three years later. Meta's…
Private equity firm KKR acquired Envision Healthcare for $9.9 billion in 2018, loading the company with $8 billion in new debt. Five years later, Envision filed for bankruptcy…
Private prison companies operate as both legislative drafter and contract beneficiary. ALEC routes their model bills to friendly state legislators. Bed-guarantee clauses make criminal-justice reform expensive for states.…
The data-broker industry generates roughly $250 billion a year selling personal information to anyone willing to pay. The largest players are companies you would not recognize: Acxiom, LexisNexis…