Hello! Q’onda! My name is Jared Olson, and I’m a writer and independent investigative journalist based in Mexico. For over four years I’ve reported on human rights, corruption, US foreign policy, the human cost of the “drug war,” and the violence of extractive industries in Honduras, Mexico, and beyond. My work has appeared in The Intercept, The Nation, The Baffler, Al-Jazeera, and my reporting has been frequently featured on NPR. Doing this kind of hard-hitting reporting is far from easy, as independent journalists report on dark subjects for pittances without stable salaries, healthcare, or institutional support. But 2025 is a big year: I’m starting a long-term, under-the-wraps project larger than anything else I’ve done so far. So I’m fundraising to be able to carry that out.

On a tight budget, though thanks to your donations, I've carried out multiple investigations I'm proud of over the past few months. In an exclusive scoop for The Intercept, I accompanied displaced campesinos and human rights defenders to an active conflict zone in Mexico, where, in a village destroyed by fighting between cartels the Trump administration has designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, I gathered spent ammo that I traced back to a factory owned by the US Army. I wrote a report for Al Jazeera on abuses committed by security forces under the "State of Emergency" in Honduras. And with the talented Fernando Silva, I co-published a sweeping investigation for Contracorriente into the assassination of Honduran human rights defender Juan López—exposing ties López had discovered before his murder between the political allies of mining interests, embezzlement of government funds, and paramilitary groups.

Despite a scant budget, I've been able to do work like this for years. In 2022, I revealed the financial flows behind the assassination of world-renowned Honduran human rights defender Berta Cáceres, linking the negligence of a European transnational bank to the business executives implicated in her murder. In 2023, I broke the story of how the de facto head of the Honduran military, a US ally in the “drug war,” was linked to dozens of assassinations at the hands of a mercenary firm he quietly ran. Last year I covered the drugs and weapons trial of ex-Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández in New York City—a close US ally and state drug trafficker. I’ve investigated the military violence , enforced disappearance , and mass displacement resulting from the continued intensification of the US-backed “drug war” in Mexico. I’ve repeatedly investigated killings linked to transnational mining and palm corporations in Honduras's Aguán Valley. Earlier this year I published a report linking the violent displacement in Mexico to mining interests, as well as a Spanish-language investigation revealing the ties between political elites, palm corporations, and paramilitary groups murdering land defenders in Honduras.

My current projects involved a larger project tying together these subjects, as well as a yearslong investigation on smuggling networks, militarization, and criminalization of migration in the Sonoran desert.

I’m aiming to achieve $10,000 USD. This money will allow me to focus exclusively on investigative projects: the kind of work that requires intensive bouts of reporting for weeks or even months, reading and pre-reporting, writing and re-writing. The work I could produce would have a concentrated analytical depth and investigative shelf-life that will be useful for activists, policy makers, and those interested in using journalistic work to support struggles for social justice south of the border.

If this is the kind of work you believe in, any amount would help.

Jared.