It was recently reported that the German news magazine Der Spiegel's award-winning reporter, Claas Relotius, who was accused of making up stories, conducted a fraudulent fund-raising campaign. Relotius was accused of collecting donations by using his personal bank account "to help Syrian orphans in Turkey".
According to the information given by a former colleague of Relotius, the journalist reported news about Syrian orphaned children living on the streets in Turkey and then launched a donation campaign.
According to Sputnik daily, the magazine's editorial team is unaware of the campaign, the amount of donations and what happened to the collected money.
In addition, a Turkish photographer working with Relotius also said that there was a lot of questionable content in the news.
Relotius wrote, before his resignation, that he had spent months trying to have the Syrian orphan children to be adopted by German families.
Der Spiegel explained that Relotius had resigned after 14 of the 60 articles he wrote found to have fabricated and invented facts. After Relotius was confronted by a senior editor, he admitted he had fabricated content in a number of articles.
Earlier this month, Relotius won Germany's Reporterpreis (Reporter of the Year) for his story about Syrians.
