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0:57

Previously on Hot Money, we

1:00

discovered how do You Bui became the perfect

1:03

place for the supercartel to come together. This

1:07

time, I want to take you back to Dublin to

1:09

Lower Baggert Street. It's a smart

1:11

neighborhood close to the city center, filled

1:14

with Grand Georgian houses. It's

1:16

April twenty sixteen and Irish

1:19

detectives have received a tip off one

1:21

of the apartments on the street is a Kinahan

1:24

Hotel safe house. But

1:26

when they get there they find someone else.

1:28

A guy with a big belly speaking broken

1:31

English. He's got some designer

1:33

shoes, a bunch of fancy watches

1:35

and several IDs, each with

1:38

a different name.

1:39

You know, here's this guy who had

1:42

a number of identities.

1:45

Shamus Boland, chief superintendent

1:47

in the Irish Police.

1:49

He was arrested for a possession of

1:51

false documents and there was no

1:53

certainty about his identity at all. It's

1:56

following his arrest and US

1:59

issuing an assistance request

2:02

across Europe that within a

2:04

number of errors, the Dutch police were

2:06

in touch with US and they identified him from

2:08

the fort of graphs on fingerprints and

2:11

senior Dutch police officers bordered a

2:13

plane immediately and flew to Dublin.

2:16

The Dutch police scrambled to get to island

2:18

because the man they find in the flat is

2:20

a murder broker who's a top enforcer

2:23

for members of the Supercartel. He's

2:25

the one who police suspect arranged

2:28

the murder we heard about in episode one,

2:30

a contract killing taken out on a

2:32

man hiding from the Iranian regime

2:35

and living undercover in our mayor ali

2:37

Ma Thummad. When I heard

2:40

about this, I first started to see what ali

2:42

Ma Thummad's death might reveal about

2:44

the transformation of international organized crime,

2:47

because it raised a big question, how

2:49

did a Dutch criminal working with a cocaine

2:52

supercartel get mixed up in a murder

2:54

that seems to have been ordered by Iran.

2:57

At this stage, no one can prove the link

2:59

to Iran. We still don't know who gave

3:02

the murder broker his orders. There's

3:04

no smoking gun, but

3:07

something is quietly happening in a high

3:09

tech unit of the Dutch police that's about

3:11

to blow the case wide open. It's

3:14

the start of something huge, a breakthrough

3:16

that will make the global criminal underworld

3:19

shudder. I'm

3:25

Miles Johnson and this is Hot Money

3:27

the New Narcos episode

3:29

five Nerds Versus

3:32

Narcos. Last

3:55

time, we heard about how the supercartel

3:57

are ramping up their operations from Dubai.

4:00

European police can't touch them there, and

4:02

their huge criminal operations back home

4:04

are booming in

4:07

the Netherlands. The ripples have started to reach

4:09

Paul Veroks.

4:10

The first five weeks, I didn't tell anyone.

4:12

I didn't even tell my girlfriend. I

4:14

was trying to get the heat away.

4:18

Remember Paul, he's the crime reporter

4:20

with the leather jacket and the gold hoop hearing, the

4:23

guy who likes to meet with gangsters in public

4:25

places like bars and coffee shops.

4:28

It's Paul who broke the news that the electrician

4:31

killed an al Mayor was actually a man

4:33

on the run from the Iranian regime. But

4:36

one day, Paul gets a different kind

4:38

of tip from a source, and this one's

4:40

about him. He hears

4:42

the group of criminals started to talk

4:44

about him. They

4:46

think he's got information, information

4:49

that links them to several recent gangland killings,

4:52

so.

4:52

They decided to have me assassinated

4:56

so that my information could not reach the

4:58

news or the police.

5:00

I was pretty stunned when I found out about

5:02

the threats to Paul's life. I've

5:05

worked in Italy and I've written about the Italian

5:07

mafia, and I've spent time with state

5:09

prosecutors living under police protection and

5:11

reporters who fear for their lives. But

5:14

a reporter hasn't been killed in Italy for many

5:16

years, and neither has a judge. Now,

5:19

in the Netherlands, one of the richest

5:21

and most politically stable countries in

5:23

the world, organized crimes seem

5:26

to be out of control. More

5:28

and more murders were happening as the top

5:30

kingpins tightened their grip on the drugs

5:32

market and Paul's reporting

5:35

on it, it landed a target on his back.

5:38

At first, he doesn't tell anyone. He

5:40

just keeps trying to figure out what's.

5:42

Going on day by day,

5:44

week by week. The source it provided

5:47

new information.

5:49

So Paul's able to keep safe for now,

5:51

but there's a limit to how long he can go on like

5:53

this.

5:54

I didn't talk to the police about it, and.

5:57

He faces a dilemma. If he tells

5:59

the police, he knows he won't be able to do

6:01

his work. Understandably,

6:03

criminals aren't so keen on meeting a reporter with

6:05

a police escort.

6:07

As a journalist, I needed to stay in the It's

6:10

one of my weapons.

6:12

But he chooses to make a bold move. He

6:14

reaches out to the criminals directly, the

6:16

ones who are after him. He sends

6:18

them a message through an intermediary and

6:20

tells them he knows about

6:22

the threats.

6:24

That's the same the police will do if they

6:26

know about a plan to kill someone,

6:28

they'll go to the guys involved and

6:31

ring the door and tell them we

6:33

know what you're up to, don't.

6:36

It's not long before Dutch law enforcement also

6:38

finds out about the threats and one of Paul's

6:40

police contacts calls them up.

6:42

He told the ball a very bad information,

6:45

but we need to meet now. So I

6:47

told him, let's go to my

6:49

house. I'll arrange some coffee and cookies,

6:51

and then we'll be having

6:54

an uncomfortable discussion because

6:56

you are not going to tell me what you

6:59

know, Indie Deil, and I won't tell you

7:01

what I know, Indie deal pulling.

7:03

The policemen sit down and have a chat over

7:06

coffee and cookies, which is possibly

7:08

the most dartrous repond you can imagine

7:10

to any situation. And it quickly

7:13

becomes clear their information matches.

7:15

Up, and then all

7:17

kinds of a lot of people from the government got

7:19

involved.

7:20

He tries to keep working, but it becomes

7:23

clear that the people who are after him they

7:25

haven't given up.

7:26

And then one day it was clear

7:28

that if we wouldn't leave now,

7:31

we would not be safe anymore.

7:34

Pauland's govern now race to pack their bags

7:36

because they've been told they have to move to a safe

7:38

house, a.

7:39

Very luxurious place, much more luxury

7:42

is than our normal apartment. And

7:44

I was transported like

7:47

the king, quite literally, because

7:49

the same organization that secured me secures

7:52

the king. So I was in a luxury

7:55

but it was like a golden cage because

7:57

I couldn't get out. I couldn't get anywhere

8:00

without a group of people,

8:02

well trained, well armed people

8:05

around me. That's a

8:07

weird way to live and a weird way to

8:09

do your job. But they

8:11

made it possible for me to work. There

8:14

hasn't been one day I've not been working because

8:16

of this.

8:21

And it's not just the threats against Paul. Really

8:24

crazy things start to happen. Criminals

8:27

fire a rocket launcher the offices of a

8:29

Dutch magazine that's been running stories about

8:31

drugs traffickers. No

8:33

one is hurt, but the message is very

8:36

clear journalists and how fair

8:38

game? And if you choose to report

8:40

on us, you're choosing to put your

8:42

life in danger. It's

8:45

sort of like Paul and his colleagues aren't just crime

8:47

journalists anymore. They're on the front

8:49

line covering a full blown attack

8:51

on Dutch society and

8:54

the men behind it all. They

8:56

aren't even in the Netherlands. They're

8:58

in Dubai, living the high life

9:01

and far out of the reach of law enforcement.

9:06

But police are about to make a breakthrough that

9:09

will change everything.

9:19

I really got enthusiastic on

9:21

that day hearing the panic.

9:24

Take a moment to imagine someone who strikes

9:27

terror into the hearts of the world's most

9:29

murderous criminals, and I can guarantee

9:32

you're not picturing Martin. Engbert. Martin's

9:36

slight and softly spoken, thoughtful.

9:39

He has a bit of the air of a tech guy as

9:41

Silicon Valley blue sky thinker

9:44

in a Steve jobstyle black turtleneck.

9:47

Martin is the Dutch public prosecutor for

9:49

high tech crime in twenty seventeen.

9:52

He and his team are working on a secret project,

9:54

one that will turn him into a sort of nerdy

9:57

batman. It all starts when Dutch

9:59

beliefs notice a new gadget showing

10:01

up on the bodies of murdered gang members. They

10:04

all seem to be carrying a particular and

10:06

peculiar type of cell phone.

10:10

They don't have a camera, the camera

10:12

has removed. They don't have a

10:14

microphone. The microphone is removed.

10:17

These phones are useless for calls and they're

10:20

only good for messaging. And the phone

10:22

service runs through specialized companies

10:24

that offer a particular promise to their clients.

10:27

They advertise police

10:30

cannot break the encryption on the phones.

10:33

Back in the days before encrypted messages,

10:35

the criminals were smart, they would meet

10:37

face to face, and if they were stupid, they

10:39

speak on the phone.

10:41

Now, I don't want to say famous,

10:43

but we are well known for

10:45

wired tepping. But the organized crime

10:47

groups know that, so the organized

10:49

crime groups in the Netherlands they don't talk

10:51

about anything on the phone themselves anymore.

10:55

Technology disrupts every business

10:57

sector, and drug trafficking is no different.

11:00

These cryptophones transformed the way

11:02

people run organized crime groups. You

11:05

don't need to be in the same city anymore to send

11:07

an order to an underling. You don't even

11:09

need to be in the same country. You can

11:11

now run a vast and complex drug trafficking

11:13

empire from Dubai without ever getting

11:16

your hands dirty. You can connect with suppliers,

11:18

you can manage your finances, and most

11:20

importantly, you can order murders

11:23

and the police have almost no

11:25

way of seeing what you're up to. Martin

11:29

and his colleagues are determined to figure out a way

11:31

to crack these phones, but they're sort

11:33

of stuck in illegal Catch twenty two.

11:36

Martin is certain that the phones are being

11:38

used by organized criminals, but he can't

11:40

prove it without access to the messages, and

11:43

to get access he needs proof that they

11:45

really are being used for crime. So

11:48

he comes up with a solution. Don't

11:50

go after the criminals, go after

11:53

the phone company. Most

11:55

of the phones are made by a small Dutch supplier

11:58

called Enetcom, and most

12:00

of their servers are in Canada.

12:02

We convinced the Canadian judge that

12:05

there would be evidence on

12:08

those servers proving that Enucom

12:11

was supplying telephones to criminals.

12:14

So one morning, after getting permission from

12:16

a judge, a team from Martin's office get

12:18

on a fly from Amsterdam to Canada.

12:21

I remember a lot of details of the

12:23

day we went to Canada. We

12:26

copied six terrhabytes, which

12:29

seemed a lot of data. So

12:32

everybody was really excited

12:35

because you think we have six terabytes

12:38

of emails, which would be billions

12:41

of messages.

12:43

It's a potentially huge breakthrough, a

12:45

treasure trove of information and evidence,

12:48

but it's all encrypted. There are layers

12:50

and layers of passwords and digital keys,

12:53

and even if they do crack the encryption, Martin

12:56

has another problem.

12:58

And had gone try

13:00

to delete all the information of their clients.

13:03

After two or three days. So

13:05

you receive an email, you read

13:07

the email, you do nothing with the

13:09

email, and then after two or three

13:11

days it will self delete.

13:15

The hackers on the high Tech team get to work.

13:17

They grind late into the night trying

13:19

to break the encryption on the messages. There's

13:22

a lot of trial and error. First,

13:24

the team have to crack the master password,

13:27

and to do that they have to try millions

13:29

of passwords, millions of combinations.

13:32

It takes months, and

13:35

we brute forced the password.

13:37

So we tried a lot of passwords

13:40

and eventually we were able to

13:42

break the password off the

13:44

key surfer and by doing that

13:47

we were able to use the private

13:50

keys. And if you have the private

13:52

key sing you have to encrypt it messengers

13:54

yet down it's easy.

13:56

Martin and his colleagues have prized open

13:59

a vault of evidence about what's

14:01

really going on inside European organized

14:03

crime. They can see how conspiracies

14:06

unfolded minute by minute through

14:08

strings of chats between gangsters. To

14:11

really set the cat amongst the pigeons, Martin's

14:13

team added a little flourish, a sort of

14:16

middle finger to the criminals.

14:18

We send out a message to all the users

14:20

of anetcom. We told them the

14:23

police is now in Canada

14:25

securing all the information

14:28

of your foots, and we

14:30

heard the panic. So in

14:32

an airleance. The panics

14:35

within organized crime groups started

14:37

on that day.

14:39

I've talked about the glimpses we sometimes

14:42

get of organized crime, and

14:44

this it was like turning on a floodlight.

14:48

It sends shock waves to the criminal underworld,

14:51

but it's about to get even worse for them.

14:53

Martin's team soon figure out a way to

14:55

recover the deleted messages, the

14:58

ones that ener common Its users believed

15:00

were gone forever, and

15:02

suddenly a once hidden universe

15:04

of crime, of alliances

15:06

and global connections is illuminated.

15:10

A lot more information about assassinations

15:13

and about the importation

15:15

of drugs.

15:17

But for Martin, there's something even

15:19

more shocking. Reading

15:21

through the messages, the police suddenly see

15:24

how easy it's become to order murders

15:26

using these phones. A crime boss

15:28

can order a contract killing as easily

15:30

as they would order a pizza.

15:32

In an Ellens there were multiple groups

15:35

that you could hire to assassinate

15:37

someone. My work is

15:40

hyder Chrome, so for me it

15:42

was really strange

15:45

to see that there wasn't

15:47

one group or multiple groups

15:49

that you could hire to kill someone.

15:53

And buried inside the millions of

15:55

messages on the enitcom servers is

15:58

one brief conversation from November

16:00

twenty fifteen. It's a

16:02

set of simple and chilling instructions

16:05

sent from one user to another. The

16:08

first message reads, got

16:10

a nice job for you bro. The response,

16:13

who needs to go to sleep? Then

16:17

it's a tug. He works in the electricity

16:19

company and drives a white van. Why

16:22

he has to go to sleep? I don't

16:24

know, and I don't

16:26

even want to know.

16:39

Every murder case deserves a solution, and

16:41

you know people should be brought to justice in Trinal

16:44

but a foreign government, especially

16:47

the country's so dictatorships,

16:49

or the killings in

16:51

another Western country. You know, this is

16:54

a thing.

16:57

We met with Elia in episode one.

16:59

He's the local councilor and our mayor the

17:01

Dutch town where Ali Mtummad was murdered,

17:04

and thanks to Paul's reporting, Ulasse now

17:06

knows that the electrician was in fact a

17:08

man on the run from the Iranian regime. He

17:11

also knows that the people who pulled the trigger

17:14

were Dutch criminals, but he

17:16

still doesn't know who gave them orders,

17:19

who hired them, Ulisa

17:21

has a strong theory though. He

17:24

thinks it has to be the Iranian regime,

17:27

the same regime that forced his father to flee

17:30

Iran decades before, but

17:32

he can't prove it. So Ulasee

17:34

does everything he can to raise awareness

17:37

of the murder. He lobbies local politicians,

17:39

he starts doing radio and TV interviews

17:42

about it, including with the Dutch state

17:44

broadcaster nosdag

17:49

dot Ilon.

17:51

So I was like, Okay, thanks for moving in

17:54

the right direction. I'm getting attention for this

17:57

very important murder case.

17:59

You were kind of going out a little bit on your own saying

18:03

something which sounds like

18:05

a crazy story. You know, as you said,

18:07

it is crazy. It is it is, and

18:09

so was anyone saying you're

18:12

wrong or where's the proof?

18:13

You know. The weird thing in politics is

18:16

the official response you get. It's like,

18:19

we won't tell you anything about

18:21

an individual case. We don't know, there's

18:24

no information, don't bother. I

18:26

was like, I'm not going to take that for an

18:28

answer.

18:29

Because for Uler, say, this is about

18:31

a lot more than just one murder.

18:34

If this is true, what is the implication for

18:36

Iranian people living in the West who fled

18:38

the country and are speaking out, what's the implication

18:41

for them. The key message

18:43

from the regime, it's a message to all

18:45

of Europe, We're

18:48

going to find you because you know, let me emphasize

18:50

this once more. This guy,

18:53

they were looking for him for thirty five

18:55

years.

18:56

So after all of this, you

18:59

were going on you know, TV,

19:01

you were giving interviews, you were you were

19:03

pressing the importance of

19:05

this case and what you thought, what you believed

19:08

based on your evidence,

19:10

and you're thinking about it, what you thought really was

19:12

the case. And then in twenty nineteen, suddenly

19:16

boom boom

19:18

Uleas was shouting about the Matomid murder

19:20

to anyone who would listen. He'd lobbied

19:23

his local mayor, the police, even

19:25

national politicians, and no one

19:27

gave him answers. It felt like

19:29

he was banging his head against a brick wall.

19:32

And then one day.

19:34

And I was in my office working and

19:36

then boom, my telephone like exploded,

19:38

like boom, this Bush messages and

19:40

I was like, finally we're

19:42

doing something back to the regime,

19:45

showing like okay, don't

19:47

do this.

19:48

The Dutch Foreign Minister has announced

19:51

that, based on classified information from

19:53

the Dutch intelligence services, the

19:55

government believes that Iran was

19:57

responsible for the Matomid murder and

20:00

another murder as well.

20:02

I remember his words were like for

20:04

ninety nine percent, for sure we know that Irani

20:06

has did this. It was of

20:08

course we because formerly the minister

20:11

could not conclude officially

20:13

it was d Raniers. But it was

20:15

like ninety nine percent, we know we expelled

20:18

them.

20:19

The expulsion of diplomats. It might sound

20:22

well, a bit diplomatic slap

20:24

on the wrist, but in foreign relations

20:26

this is a big deal, a

20:28

rare move, and for Uda say it's

20:31

his own country, finally agreeing

20:33

that he was right all along, the people

20:35

behind Mtammid's murder were in Tehran.

20:39

These are important moments, but

20:42

then this quite rapidly

20:44

changed to something something

20:48

ugly for me.

20:49

When Unasa does another round of news interviews

20:52

linking Tehran to the Mtummd murder and

20:54

to the murder broker known as Noofel, Novel

20:57

is not happy, and even though

20:59

he's in prison awaiting trial,

21:01

he finds a way to let Ulusay know about

21:04

it. A lawyer working for mister

21:06

now ful Fassi that's Novel's

21:08

full name, files a legal complaint

21:10

against Ulas. He says he's abusing

21:12

his position and making false allegations

21:15

about his client's connections to Iran.

21:17

And I remember, you know, I'm

21:20

sure you can relate this feeling.

21:23

Sometimes unfortunately this happens

21:25

in life. You get really cold and you feel

21:27

the energy flowing from your head to you. It

21:31

just drains your energy. And I got

21:33

really cold, and I was like, okay,

21:36

I know who missed the fuss is.

21:39

It was clear for me this is pure intimidation.

21:42

Like you know, fifteen years ago, people

21:45

through a rock at

21:48

your window. This is the

21:51

modern form of the intimidation. We know

21:53

who you are. Stop talking about this

21:55

connection.

21:57

RELI say, tells the Dutch security services about

21:59

the letter. They decide that his life

22:01

and his family are in danger. So

22:04

Ulas, just like Paul and

22:06

like his own father decades before, is

22:08

now put the police protection. Yeah.

22:11

But then they made one

22:13

mistake. They didn't study my character

22:16

or my family history. So I

22:18

immediately went out to publicly

22:21

and said I will not be intimidated. Go

22:23

to Hell. I will never be intimidated.

22:26

Ulas isn't shutting up because he still

22:28

has too many questions about the murder.

22:30

He knows that now full Fasci novel

22:33

was found in it in a hand safe house in Dublin,

22:36

and that Nophel was the one who arranged

22:38

for Alia mctomma to be murdered. And

22:40

now he knows that the Dutch government

22:43

believes it was Iran who was ultimately behind

22:45

the assassination.

22:46

But someone spoke to mister Fassi.

22:50

I don't know who. It's not like someone

22:52

from Tehran is calling mister Fussy. That's

22:55

not how things work.

22:58

So how do things work? The

23:00

supercartel seems to be connected

23:02

to this murder, but what does that

23:04

connection mean? What links

23:06

these two things together? Looking

23:09

into all of this, pulling on threads,

23:12

I came across a case that might help

23:14

us begin to understand.

23:16

Somehow we established our credibility. At that point,

23:19

she already knew we were high leveled gold claff cours,

23:22

probably multiaton. We have connections

23:25

to the military, which cost

23:27

have developpened the door for us.

23:29

That's next time on Hot Money.

23:49

Hot Money is a production of The Financial Times

23:51

and Pushkin Industries. It was written

23:54

and reported by me Miles Johnson, and

23:56

if you've got any leads or information about this story,

23:58

you can email me at new narcost

24:01

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24:03

producer is Peggy Sutton. Edith

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Russello is the associate producer. Fact

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checking is by Arthur god engineering

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by Sarah Bruguerer, Sound

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design from Jake Gorsky. Jeremy

24:16

Walmsley wrote the original music. Our

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editor is Sarah Nix, and the executive

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producers are Jacob Goldstein and Cheryl

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Bramley. Special thanks to Laura

24:25

Clark, Marshall, waroven Alistair

24:27

macke, Breen Turner and Arlie Adlington