Indian journalist and illustrator receive prestigious Pulitzer Prize for cybercrime expose

Two Indian journalists have been honoured with the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for an art reporting project exposing cybercrime in India.

Anand RK and Suparna Sharma, along with Natalie Obiko Pearson, were announced as winners in the Illustrated Reporting and Commentary category for their report published by Bloomberg.  

Another Indian journalist, Devjyot Ghoshal, was named a finalist in the same category for an expose of cybercrime and human trafficking in Southeast Asia. The report exposed how criminal networks imprison people from several countries, including India, and force them to scam victims overseas.

In the International Reporting category, Aniruddha Ghosal was a winner for an investigation into the secret use of mass-surveillance tools by the United States Border Patrol. The investigation found that the technology was initially developed in Silicon Valley and later expanded in China. The series also exposed its use by China and other countries.

The Pulitzer Prize, regarded as the highest honour in American journalism, is administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

The illustrated Bloomberg story was a harrowing account about a Lucknow neurologist, Ruchira Tandon, who was forced by cybercriminals pretending to be officials into a “house arrest” for six days and had Rs 2.8 crores looted from her bank accounts.

It “cast light on the growing global challenges of surveillance and digital scams”, the Pulitzer announcement said.

Anand is a Mumbai-based illustrator and visual artist who has won several awards, and Suparna Sharma is a freelance investigative journalist in India.