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A prominent journalist who played a major role in the Panama Papers case has been killed in Malta, The Associated Press reported. 

Daphne Caruana Galizia, whose investigative work focused on corruption, was killed when a car bomb blew her vehicle to pieces, the agency said, adding tributes to Galizia poured in on Monday evening, as thousands of Maltese gathered in the streets for a candlelight vigil to the reporter.

Galizia is believed to have just published the last post on her widely read blog, Running Commentary, just before leaving her house Mosta, a town outside the capital Valletta.

"There are crooks everywhere you look now,” she had written, “the situation is desperate."

Soon after driving away in her Peugeot 108, Galizia’s vehicle exploded with such force it was sent flying over a wall and into a field.  Galizia reported death threats against her to the police just over two weeks ago, according to local media.

Her in-depth reporting made her many enemies, including the Prime Minister, opposition politicians and members of the judiciary.

One of the topics she examined was the Maltese content in the Panama Papers leaked in 2016. She wrote that Muscat’s wife, the country’s energy minister and the government’s chief-of-staff had offshore holdings in Panama to receive money from Azerbaijan.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, while acknowledging Galizia as one of his “harshest critics on a political and personal level", denounced the "barbaric attack" as "unacceptable".

He said the violence was a "barbaric attack on press freedom".