Giacomo Tognini

Giacomo Tognini
Nationality	Italian-American
Occupation	Journalist, staff writer
Employer	Forbes
Known for	Wealth reporting, billionaire investigations, Forbes contributor

Giacomo Tognini is an Italian-American journalist and staff writer at Forbes magazine, where he covers billionaires, wealth, and business. Based in the publication's wealth reporting team, Tognini has authored numerous investigative and profile pieces on some of the world's richest individuals, tracing the origins of their fortunes, tracking their assets, and examining the broader economic and political implications of concentrated wealth. His work has included detailed reporting on subjects ranging from the financial dealings of Jeffrey Epstein to the tracking of Russian oligarchs' superyachts in the wake of international sanctions, as well as profiles of lesser-known billionaires across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Tognini's byline has appeared consistently on Forbes since at least 2020, and he has contributed to several of the publication's flagship editorial projects, including its annual billionaires list coverage and real-time tracking of billionaire wealth movements.

Career

Forbes

Giacomo Tognini has served as a staff writer at Forbes, contributing to the magazine's wealth and billionaires coverage. His reporting spans a wide range of subjects related to extreme wealth, including corporate profiles, investigations into the sources of billionaire fortunes, and coverage of global economic events as they relate to the ultra-wealthy.

Early Coverage and Business Profiles

Among Tognini's earlier published work at Forbes was a November 2020 article examining the business model of Copart, a publicly traded, Dallas-based company that dominates the market for processing and reselling salvage vehicles. The piece explored how the firm's founders built a billion-dollar enterprise from what began as a junkyard operation.

In March 2020, during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Tognini reported on Italian billionaire Gustavo Denegri, whose diagnostics company DiaSorin announced a new coronavirus testing kit expected to significantly reduce diagnosis time. The article noted that Denegri's net worth increased by approximately $100 million following the announcement.

In October 2021, Tognini profiled Laurent Junique, a French citizen whose Singapore-based call center company had made him a billionaire. The article highlighted Junique's globe-trotting background and his rise in the business process outsourcing industry.

Russian Oligarch Yacht Tracking

In March 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent imposition of international sanctions against Russian billionaires, Tognini co-authored or contributed to Forbes coverage that tracked the locations of superyachts owned by Russian oligarchs. A Forbes article published on March 1, 2022, reported that the United States and its allies were targeting Russian billionaires' yachts as part of broader sanctions enforcement, and the publication tracked down 51 such vessels, documenting their locations around the world.

This reporting intersected with broader media coverage of high-profile assets owned by sanctioned individuals. Among the most prominent vessels tracked in these efforts was M/Y Eclipse, a 162.5-metre superyacht owned by Russian businessman Roman Abramovich. The Eclipse was built by Blohm+Voss of Hamburg, Germany, and delivered on December 9, 2010. At the time of its delivery, the Eclipse was the world's longest private yacht, a distinction it held until the launch of the Azzam in April 2013. The vessel's cost was reported at approximately $590 million as of September 2011, and it featured amenities including two helicopter pads, a mini-submarine, three landing boats, and a crew of 70. The yacht's movements became a subject of international interest following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as governments sought to identify and freeze the assets of Russian oligarchs.

European Billionaire Profiles

Tognini has produced a number of detailed profiles of billionaires from across Europe, particularly those whose stories are less widely covered in English-language media. In April 2025, he published a profile of Dutch billionaire Remon Vos, who moved to the Czech Republic in the 1990s and built an industrial real estate company. The article examined how Vos's business could potentially benefit from shifting trade dynamics between the United States and China, as higher tariffs might redirect manufacturing and logistics operations to European facilities.

Also in April 2025, Tognini profiled Samir Mane, described as Albania's first billionaire. The article traced Mane's journey from fleeing Albania's communist regime in the early 1990s to resettling in Austria, where he made his initial fortune, before returning to Albania to oversee a real estate empire.

Jeffrey Epstein Financial Investigations

Among Tognini's most prominent reporting projects has been his investigation into the financial history of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In July 2025, Forbes published a major article by Tognini under the headline "How Jeffrey Epstein Got So Rich," which reported that Epstein was worth nearly $600 million at the time of his death in August 2019. The piece attributed this wealth primarily to two wealthy billionaire clients and noted the role of generous tax arrangements in Epstein's financial accumulation.

A related article, also attributed to Tognini's reporting, examined the fate of Epstein's real estate holdings, detailing the selloff of properties described as "tainted" and tracing where the proceeds went, six years after Epstein's death in a Manhattan prison cell.

In February 2026, Tognini published a follow-up article revealing new details from the Epstein files, reporting that two additional billionaire clients had been identified: real estate mogul Mortimer Zuckerman and Ariane de Rothschild, an heir by marriage to the Rothschild banking family. This series of articles represented a significant contribution to the public understanding of how Epstein accumulated his fortune, a question that had remained partially unanswered for years following his arrest and subsequent death.

Reporting Focus and Approach

Tognini's body of work at Forbes is characterized by a focus on tracing the origins and mechanics of extreme wealth. His reporting frequently examines billionaires who are not household names in the English-speaking world, bringing attention to figures from countries such as Albania, the Czech Republic, Italy, France, and Singapore. His investigative work on Epstein's finances demonstrates an additional capacity for forensic financial journalism, drawing on court documents and public records to reconstruct complex financial relationships.

His coverage of Russian oligarchs' assets during the 2022 sanctions crisis placed him within a broader journalistic effort across multiple publications to track the global footprint of sanctioned wealth. The Forbes yacht-tracking project, to which Tognini contributed, was notable for its scope, identifying the locations of 51 vessels owned by Russian billionaires at a time when Western governments were actively seeking to seize or freeze such assets.

Recognition

Tognini's reporting has been cited and referenced by other media outlets in the course of coverage related to billionaire wealth, international sanctions, and the Epstein financial investigations. His work on the Epstein files, in particular, generated substantial public interest and was part of a broader wave of reporting following the release of new documents related to Epstein's financial and social networks. The Forbes yacht-tracking project in which he participated received attention during a period of heightened international focus on the enforcement of sanctions against Russian oligarchs following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

His profiles of lesser-known European billionaires have contributed to Forbes's broader editorial mission of cataloguing and contextualizing global wealth, and his byline has become a regular feature in the publication's billionaires and wealth coverage verticals.