About Marco Vernaschi - ARCHIVE
Marco Vernaschi was born in Turin, Italy, in 1973. He began his long-term project to document the major illegal activities behind terrorism with his project "West Africa's New Achilles' Heel", on cocaine trafficking, with the overall goal of showing how unaware consumers in the West support international terrorism.
His work with the Pulitzer Center documents the effects of cocaine trafficking in West Africa, showing how criminal networks led by Hezbollah and Al Qaeda destroyed a whole country in just a few years.
During this coverage, Marco spent a considerable amount of time with an African organization of drug traffickers affiliated with Islamist terrorists, documenting their criminal activities, the assassination of the president of Guinea-Bissau and the devastating social effects on local people, including crack addiction and prostitution.
In 2007 Marco documented in Bolivia the early stages of President Evo Morales' new policy on coca crops and drug trafficking in Bolivia, resulting in the story, "Bolivia: Broken Promises", that was defined as "unprecedented" by the New York Times.
In 2006 Marco covered the tin war in Bolivia's Altiplano documenting the fratricidal conflicts among miners and its aftermath. The result was his story "Condemned to Repeat".
Marco worked on other stories in Indonesia, Argentina, India, Nepal, Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Belize. His work is published internationally by major magazines such as Newsweek, National Geographic, GEO and The Sunday Times Magazine. He's currently working on his first book, NARCO.
Marco received a grant from the Pulitzer Center in 2008-09 and was among the 10 winners of the ODP Award 2009 for Human Values. He was also awarded the FUJIFILM Prize for Photojournalism in 2006 and was named Young Photojournalist of the Year in 2004 by the Italian Photography Foundation, and received two grants from the Nando Peretti Foundation.
His work with the Pulitzer Center documents the effects of cocaine trafficking in West Africa, showing how criminal networks led by Hezbollah and Al Qaeda destroyed a whole country in just a few years.
During this coverage, Marco spent a considerable amount of time with an African organization of drug traffickers affiliated with Islamist terrorists, documenting their criminal activities, the assassination of the president of Guinea-Bissau and the devastating social effects on local people, including crack addiction and prostitution.
In 2007 Marco documented in Bolivia the early stages of President Evo Morales' new policy on coca crops and drug trafficking in Bolivia, resulting in the story, "Bolivia: Broken Promises", that was defined as "unprecedented" by the New York Times.
In 2006 Marco covered the tin war in Bolivia's Altiplano documenting the fratricidal conflicts among miners and its aftermath. The result was his story "Condemned to Repeat".
Marco worked on other stories in Indonesia, Argentina, India, Nepal, Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Belize. His work is published internationally by major magazines such as Newsweek, National Geographic, GEO and The Sunday Times Magazine. He's currently working on his first book, NARCO.
Marco received a grant from the Pulitzer Center in 2008-09 and was among the 10 winners of the ODP Award 2009 for Human Values. He was also awarded the FUJIFILM Prize for Photojournalism in 2006 and was named Young Photojournalist of the Year in 2004 by the Italian Photography Foundation, and received two grants from the Nando Peretti Foundation.