In 2013, ProPublica reporter Sebastian Rotella got a tip on an assassination attempt against Enrique Degenhart Asturias, a 44-year-old Guatemala native who had been working as a consultant to the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City. Rotella, a veteran Latin America correspondent, knew such violence was common in that part of the world, but this event felt distinctive.

For one thing, Degenhart was shot nine times, but he lived to tell the story. Second, Degenhart had recently been fired from a post in the country’s notoriously corrupt immigration service after trying to reform it. Third, the Guatemalan government had removed Degenhart’s security detail ten months before gunmen tried to take his life.