Anas Aremeyaw Anas

Anas Aremeyaw Anas is the most famous journalist in Ghana whose face almost no one has seen. An undercover investigator who hides his identity behind a curtain of beads, he has spent his career exposing corruption and abuse across Africa under a simple motto: name, shame and jail.

Background

Born in Ghana in the late 1970s, Anas built his reputation in print journalism and documentary film, choosing a path few reporters dare: going undercover, for months at a time, inside the institutions he investigates. He keeps his appearance secret so he can keep working, a decision that has become his trademark.

Tiger Eye and method

Through his outfit Tiger Eye PI, he has posed as a madman, a taxi driver, a waiter, even disguised himself as a rock, to gather evidence of cocoa smuggling, child trafficking and police brutality. Hidden cameras, prosthetic masks and wigs are as much his tools as a notebook and pen.

Number 12

His most explosive work came in 2018 with Number 12, an investigation into corruption in Ghanaian football. The exposé implicated much of the country's football administration and led directly to the dissolution of the Ghana Football Association, one of the most consequential pieces of journalism the country has seen. The work carried real cost; his close collaborator Ahmed Hussein-Suale was murdered in 2019.

Standing

Anas has won more than fifty local and international awards for his human-rights and anti-corruption reporting. Controversial to some and heroic to others, he has redefined what investigative journalism can achieve in Ghana and across the continent.