Case Study: RTÉ Investigations Unit achieves uncovering undisclosed assets and exposing politicians with OrientDB

Investigating Corruption with Graph Relationships

RTÉ’s Investigations Unit, the national broadcaster’s investigative journalism team, needed to link messy public records, corporate registries and politicians’ declared interests to uncover potential undisclosed assets. The core challenge was matching structured and unstructured data with few common identifiers and surfacing relationships hidden across disparate datasets.

The team built an ETL pipeline, used a rule-based fuzzy matcher (Duke) to generate weighted candidate links, and ingested results into OrientDB’s multi-model graph/document database so matches became traversable edges. Graph traversals and Studio-based analysis produced a focused list of probable undisclosed assets, enabling follow-up investigations and covert filming that culminated in an award-winning documentary exposing widespread under-declaration and three officials apparently seeking personal benefits.

RTÉ Investigations Unit

Fabrizio Fortino

Consultant Software Engineer