S&D E22: Beyond the Shadows - The Underworld's Financial Playbook

In this conversation, host Aidan Larkin explores the complexities of international money laundering with Miles Johnson, an investigative reporter for the Financial Times and author of Chasing Shadows (2023).

Drawing on Miles’ reporting and research, they examine the intricate connections between organized crime and global finance, the challenges faced by law enforcement in dismantling these networks, and the geopolitical factors that influence the recovery of illicit assets. Tune in to hear Miles explain how criminal networks navigate loopholes to move illicit funds across borders, and the geopolitical factors that influence their recovery.

Timestamps

00:00 – Introduction

10:30 - The Intersection of Organized Crime and Financial Markets

18:45 - Challenges in Investigating Money Laundering

25:00 - The Role of the DEA and International Law Enforcement

32:20 - The Complexity of International Crime Networks

40:00 - Reflections on Chasing Shadows

About our Guest

Miles Johnson is an investigative journalist specialising in international organised crime and money laundering. As a reporter for the Financial Times, he has uncovered complex criminal networks, exposed the financial systems that enable illicit operations across borders, and been instrumental in bringing high-profile cross-border investigations to light to reveal the mechanisms that underpin global criminal enterprises.

Key Takeaways

Organised Crime and Financial Markets: Organised crime syndicates operate like sophisticated businesses, interacting with the financial world and exploiting its structures for money laundering.  

Challenges in Investigating Money Laundering: Miles explains the intricate and resource-intensive nature of money laundering investigations, emphasising the need for robust legal frameworks and international cooperation to tackle these crimes effectively.  

The Role of the DEA and International Law Enforcement: Aidan and Miles explore the DEA's expanded mandate post-9/11, its international operations, and the challenges faced in cross-border law enforcement efforts.  

Complex International Crime Networks: The conversation highlights the multifaceted nature of global crime networks, involving diverse groups and activities, and the importance of understanding these dynamics for effective law enforcement.  

Reflecting on Chasing Shadows: Miles' reflects on the realities of investigating international crime, the challenges faced by law enforcement, and the importance of accurate journalism in shedding light on these issues.

Resources Mentioned

Amazon | Chasing Shadows

Miles Johnson | Financial Times  

NCA: Operation Destabilise

Erin West on Seize & Desist

Oliver Bullough on Seize & Desist

Geoff White on Seize & Desist

Stay Connected

Dive deeper into the world of asset recovery with Seize & Desist. Subscribe for exclusive insights into the stories that are redefining asset recovery:

https://link.cohostpodcasting.com/b36b929c-6ca3-4e49-8258-44c310d012c9?d=sG5Qi2MdL  

Disclaimer

Our podcasts are for informational purposes only. They are not intended to provide legal, tax, financial, and/or investment advice. Listeners must consult their own advisors before making decisions on the topics discussed.  

Asset Reality has no responsibility or liability for any decision made or any other acts or omissions in connection with your use of this material.

The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Views and opinions expressed by Asset Reality employees are those of the employees and do not necessarily reflect the views of the company.  

Asset Reality does not guarantee or warrant the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, suitability or validity of the information in any particular podcast and will not be responsible for any claim attributable to errors, omissions, or other inaccuracies of any part of such material.  

Unless stated otherwise, reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by Asset Reality.

Transcription

Aidan Larkin

Miles, hello, and welcome to the Seas and Desist podcast. As I'd said before, we we try and unpack the the the big sort of challenges, the case studies, the stories that sort of sit underneath this asset recovery sector, which we like to sort of frame as, you know, the biggest and most important sector most people don't really know, or understand or certainly understand the complexities and the challenges. And when this all came about because I was, speaking at an event, where you were the keynote speaker, and sort of launching, not actually... Not launching your book, but I think your book has almost come around again because of geopolitically everything that's going on. And it seems very, very relevant to be talking about it now because underneath asset recovery... I mean, the origin of all asset recovery cases pretty much is money laundering, And money laundering is international, and I think your book does an incredible job that I'm halfway through. Admittedly, I'm not finished yet, but but halfway through sort of linking together just the the sheer business enterprise and interoperability and complexity that is international money laundering, which if there were... If there wasn't any, there wouldn't be asset recovery. So I'm really, really interested to to dive in today, Miles. Thank you so much for joining us.  

Miles Johnson

Oh, thank you for having me.  

Aidan Larkin

Well, look, would you like to give us a bit about your your background and what led you? And I promise we'll get all the generic book questions out of the way that everyone has to ask for our audience who weren't there the few weeks ago when we first met, and then we'll we'll dive into some of the actual stories themselves. But but what what what led you to writing this particular book with your background?  

Miles Johnson

Yeah. So my background is, I I started actually out as a music journalist, when I was a lot younger and, you know, a million miles away from, writing about international organized crime. And I did that for a couple of years, freelance, and then sort of, sort of started to realize maybe this isn't what I wanna be doing for the next sort of twenty, thirty years. And I, got lucky. I joined EFT as a trainee. And, as a trainee, you basically are focusing on a lot of, stuff to do, you know, with business and finance and markets. And, so that was really sort of my training at the Financial Times, looking at, you know, financial markets, investing, you know, hedge funds, you know, these sorts of sort of, parts of the world, bond markets. And that, again, doesn't seem like the most obvious place to then eventually end up writing about international organized crime and money laundering, but it gave me a really strong training.  

Aidan Larkin

I I have a very different opinion on that. Yeah. I think it's it's the perfect place to learn about money laundering.  

Miles Johnson

Yeah. I mean, may... Maybe it is, but I mean, it doesn't... You know, so people sometimes are sort of surprised by that trajectory, but it's, it... What it really did was sort of... I had to do a number of things in doing that job, which is firstly, you know, often you're writing about things that are quite opaque. You know, you could be writing about, big, financial funds and stuff that don't really want you to be writing about them, don't really want... Or at least if you are writing about them, what the... What you are saying to be very tightly controlled. So you need to kind of find ways into looking at organizations that are opaque and, figuring out what they're doing from incomplete information. You need to figure out how to build sources in, sort of these sorts of institutions. You also sort of need to get a grounding in how sort of, you know, the sort of underlying economics of things works. You know? So you get a sort of pretty good handle on things like accounting and and and, you know, sort of ways in which, things are structured. And so flash forward, you know, several years later, I was doing a bunch of foreign postings. You know, so I I was in Spain and then later in, the United States and New York, and, I ended up in Rome, for the Feet. And whilst I was in Rome, I started to get really, really interested in, organized crime in Italy because I started to see the ways in which it overlapped with what we would regard as the sort of regular conventional financial world. And so, you know, you have these, big organized crime families and sort of big networks, which are, you know, really doing serious numbers in terms of revenues. You know? It's obviously... It's a shadow market. You know? They don't publish audited, you know, annual statements and stuff. But, you know, the estimates, you know, you sort of... In terms of just, like, things like, you know, what one would expect, like, you know, cocaine trafficking and extortion and stuff like that. You know, these are these are big. You know, they would rank as, you know, fairly large private companies. And increasingly, as these entities, these families get, you know, bigger, more global, more sophisticated, they start to interact more with the regular financial world. And so that's sort of where I started to explore the sort of world of organized crime and started to see those parallels and use those same sort of, I guess, reporting techniques as I used with hedge funds, to sort of report on those sorts of, entities. And that was my sort of way in.  

Aidan Larkin

But... And it is a fair... Or, well, do do you believe it is a fair comparison that... I mean, you've just highlighted a, you know, multiyear approach, completely international. I mean, should we be thinking about these organizations rather than thinking about them as the the cliche, what we see in the movies as just, you know, businesses, albeit illegal? But, actually, they are run like sophisticated hedge funds. They are run like... No. Appreciate there's not as many, you know, regulations. And like you say, they don't exactly publish audited annual accounts. But what was, like, what was that big takeaway? Were you surprised by just how sheerly, you know, just organized this was and the sort of the interoperability? Because that's something you talk a lot about in your book. No stitching together what could seem like completely distinct groups. I almost compare it to, like, no... Like, Tesla built their car, but they also built the batteries. And then lots of other companies rely on Tesla for the batteries. So a lot of people won't know that they're the infrastructure provider to other electric cars and just see the shiny Tesla motor out front. That was what I was getting a lot from the book was just for... Which would blew me away. And I knew about it anecdotally, but not the level that you had covered it, about how these different groups from your traditional narcotics dealers would rely on... You know, they maybe do shipping well and someone else also does know, their logistics or they maybe do money laundering better or they, you know, understand crypto better and emerging technologies. I mean, what what did you see when you looked at those sort of, like, the comparison to the traditional corporate and tech world?  

Miles Johnson

I think, I guess, if you're applying that same framework as you would to a sort of business, you look at the sort of, you know, the sort of microeconomics of the business and then sort of the more sort of macro or market structural aspects. And I think in terms of, you know, on on the first one, you know, you'd see, you know, what makes certain crime organizations different and more resilient to others. And, you know, just within Italy on its own, you know, where my sort of reporting began and then later kind of went beyond the borders of Italy, to, you know, Latin America, United States, or the parts of Europe, the Middle East. But, you know, if you look... Start at the beginning, you'd say, you know, in in Italy, you know, the famous mafia, the one which people still see as synonymous with the mafia, the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. And, you know, they've obviously became world famous, featured in, you know, Hollywood movies. And, you know, everyone everyone kinda knows who they are, but, you know, they went into... You know, after really becoming unbelievably powerful, in the nineteen eighties, you know, sort of in the nineteen nineties, was sort of eventually sort of really broken up and destroyed by the Italian state to the extent where they're now, you know, very much sort of a a shadow of their former selves. But the power really shifted to a much less known and sort of quieter sort of mafia constellation, which was in Calabrio. So that's sort of that's the sort of the the toe... You know, so the the sort of foot of Italy. Right? The south sort of facing Sicily is the region of Calabria. It's not as well known as Sicily, but these, these these these families, if you're looking at it from a sort of micro level, they're extremely resilient structures. So, basically, because they're based on, blood ties and intermarriage, it means that they have a huge amount of sort of generational continuity, which makes them distinct and different. There are similar different crime organizations in Europe and around the world which have some similar characteristics. But just looking at them, it means that from that micro level, like, why does this work, so to speak, as a business? You know? Because you have  

Aidan Larkin

like, durability and  

Miles Johnson

Yeah. It creates that durability because, you know, there's several, you know, sort of, like, I call... You could sort of call it in sort of offensive and defensive sort of, benefits to that structure where, you know, because you, you can't just sign up and join, you know, you have to be a relative or marry in, it means they're quite, resilient. They're difficult to infiltrate for the police, you know, because, basically, people are less likely to want to sort of, become a state witness and betray their entire family. That makes it tricky. There also, there is continuity there, which is really appealing to their business relationships, their clients, and their and their suppliers. So if you're a cocaine cartel in Colombia, you are looking for European, customers, and you want someone who's going to be there next year and ideally in five years and ideally in ten years because it's really annoying if you invest all of this time and effort to create this relationship with a with a drug trafficking organization, and then they get busted, they're gone, and now you need to find a new person, devote all that effort again. Whereas if you have this resilient structure where if the boss is arrested, then his brother takes over or his son takes over or his nephew takes over.  

Aidan Larkin

You've probably met the deputy at countless meetings, and now all of a sudden he's being promoted. Yeah.  

Miles Johnson

Exactly. So there's this  

Aidan Larkin

What what you're gonna say is it It's like brand and startups and in companies.  

Miles Johnson

Exactly. Idea. And it... Yeah. It's a it's a strong brand. You know? These people are serious. They have resources. They have this, kind of continuity of of people. They're gonna be around, so it's worth investing in this relationship. It means that you have these deeper relationships that go over long periods of time, which facilitate that critical sort of supply of, you know, cocaine being traffic from Latin America to to Europe. And so that's that's one sort of aspect on the sort of, like, the the the micro level. On the macro level, you know, the thing which was instantly really interesting to me was that, you know, the European cocaine industry is sort of sometimes not really seen as distinct in its sort of the economic drivers to, you know, what's happening in, you know, between the Mexican and US border or something like that. And, you know, I'd sort of spent a lot of time at the start, like, talking to people in law enforcement and other experts, you know, people who'd really spend their careers watching this phenomenon of how, you know, cocaine trafficking in Europe exploded over the last sort of twenty, thirty years, and, you know, it sort of become, you know, multi... Multibillion dollar market and one which sort of rivals the the US market, the North American market in size. And I'm like, sort of, why is that? You know, what are the sort of macro get  

Aidan Larkin

really good at it? So, like, what... No. How did they Yeah. Grow that business?  

Miles Johnson

I mean, so then then, you know, so you think, like, you know, if you look at it from just any other business market, you would see, you know, the sort of things that stand out immediately of, you know, firstly, you know, if... Structural reasons where, you know, if you're a Colombian cartel and you're trying to sell drugs into the United States, you are basically sort of cut out by... Or a lot of the economic value is taken by the Mexican cartels because they control the borders, the re... You know, that sort of critical real estate, you know, in terms of moving cocaine from, you know, through Central America into United States. So the economic value if you're a supplier in in, in in in Colombia is, like, way, is is way reduced, you know, because, basically, you have these people, taking  

Aidan Larkin

A literal a literal and geographical middleman.  

Miles Johnson

Yes. Exactly. And so suddenly, it becomes much more tempting, to look towards Europe. Well, other reasons because, you know, secondly, if you start trafficking drugs into the United States, you attract the attention of US law enforcement. And, people, even the sort of, toughest, scariest, drug lords in Latin America are very, very concerned about the DEA. You know? And then, you know, US law enforcement is very aggressive and effective, and you really would like to not have them on your case. And so if you, instead of, trafficking into the United States, you traffic into Europe, you... It's slightly changed, but you would attract less attention. You would just, be less likely to, attract the attention of US law enforcement, and that is a good thing if you are a drug trafficking organization. And then lastly, the price of, you know, of of a kilogram of cocaine in Europe is was historically much higher than in the United States. So you would be able to make more money by sending it into Europe. The infrastructure in Europe is there because you have these massive ports, you know, like Rotterdam, Antwerp. You know, in in Calabrio, you have Gioia Tower. You have these ports which are already there. They're massive in, you know, container ports.  

Aidan Larkin

Access to mainland Europe. Yeah.  

Miles Johnson

Access to mainland Europe.  

Aidan Larkin

Well, actually, everywhere access to Western Central Asia the whole lot once you hit one of those land masses. That's it.  

Miles Johnson

Yeah. So, you know, so from that sort of, like, you know, macro... You know, it's a top down perspective. Like, what's not to like in terms of, you know, basically, it's a... This is a lower risk, higher margin, and you have, you know, just generally an easier time. There was a period of time when I think it was perceived that law enforcement in Europe was more fragmented. So, you know, you're less likely... Because of the complexity of, you know, the setup, you know, you might be able to traffic something into Rotterdam and then, you know, ship it down to Spain or something. And, you know, and and you're you're you're crossing borders, which increases the complexity law enforcement coming after you. And so, that was sort of initially sort of what, you know, sort of stood out to me that this was, for a certain period of time, just really looked like a a perfect setup. And, obviously, most... One of really, really important facts is, obviously, Europe is a rich place, you know, with high GDP per capita and a, you know, willing consumer base to buy those sorts of products. So, that was sort of, like, the origins of, you know, my my sort of, entry into that world by talking to people.  

Aidan Larkin

And would it be right in saying that, I mean, those same, let's say, sort of, cartel leads in, sort of Latin America and across that continent? Yes. They may be using the EU as a gateway into... You know, there's just mainland Europe in general and throwing in Switzerland and Monaco and all those, you know, high network places as you mentioned. I'm right and assuming, but their laundering was probably being done in the US. Like, they're not they're not necessarily trying to then buy a house in Italy. They're probably buying a house in Miami over the border. They're probably buying a house. I mean, do you see that? Was that still a risk that you were aware of? Were the DEA... Was there a footprint financially in the US, or was all of their operations distinctly separate that they were then actually laundering proceeds, in Europe versus going to the the US?  

Miles Johnson

I think, you know, with the people, you know, because the sort of time horizon of the book is sort of broadly sort of twenty fourteen to about twenty seventeen. Mhmm. And the the sort of... The the people I was looking at, you know, basically, principally European actors Okay. While the law enforcement is US. And I think they sort of would tend to... Every sort of organization has its own, sort of priorities for laundering money and some are sort of more sophisticated than others. And I think one of the things which, really stuck out to me was, know, we frequently think of... Which is a really important part of it, but we think we think of money laundering as, you know, people laundering the proceeds of their criminal acts, you know, for their own... To build their own wealth and, you know, accumulate benefits to themselves. So, you know, buying a mansion somewhere with the money they've made from their their crimes. But, one of the things which I hadn't really, thought about in-depth before, was when I was looking at these, the sort of the the stories, the the sort of cases that were the sort of starting base for this book. You know, you will re... You know, these are really, really detailed, indictments of, you know, like, thousands of pages, and you really get into the sort of, like, the the the weeds in terms of how how the conspiracies come together. And one key money laundering thing that I hadn't really thought about that much was that, you know, when we think of international drugs trafficking, we we we we think of people shipping cocaine loads to Europe, for example, on on container ships. So that's just intuitive. You know? Someone somewhere hides a bunch of, you know, sort of narcotics in a in a boat, in a... Or in a or in a container ship, and it goes into a port, and people take it off. But that's almost the easy part because, you know, there are, you know, just so many tens of thousands of container ships coming in, you know, containers on ships coming into Europe.  

Aidan Larkin

A numbers game.  

Miles Johnson

Yeah. It's a numbers game. It's like it's just logistically impossible without specific intelligence. Like, you can't just search every container. Like, global trade would just grind to a halt. So that is a sort of... You know, it's a well known, you know, thing, which I'm sure your listeners would sort of, be familiar with. The, you know, you... The the amount actually core is a tiny fraction of the amount that gets through. So it's just that that's, like, that's sort of the easy side. But one thing which is really much trickier is, let's say, you are that drug trafficking organization, you know, in this book, you know, an Italian Calabrio mafia boss, and you're trying to buy eight tons of cocaine from a, a Colombian cartel. You need to figure out how to pay them. You need to figure out how to get a really large amount of cash, physical cash, and then give it to someone who is trustworthy, who will then be able to move that cash through, you know, the international system to them. And you can't really transport that cash physically. Like, you could, but it's quite difficult and quite risky. You know? Doing the reverse trade, just getting, you know, a hundred million euros, two hundred million euros, and sticking it in a container ship and sending it to Colombia Doesn't really work very well. You know? Like, that's something where how do you make sure that money isn't lost? How can you trust the people on board? How can you have eyes of the whole process? It's bad. So you need to... There was... The thing which was really eye opening to me was that there are these really specialist organizations that focus on money laundering as a service for these criminal groups. And they're the really critical sort of nodes in how this international sort of criminality works because they're the people who... You know, in the book, there is a sort of critical scene where Salvatore, the Italian, you know, the Calabrio mafia boss, he, you know, he travels to Rome, and he meets a guy in a kind of apartment who has been... Who is working on behalf of the people who are selling him the drugs in Colombia. So he doesn't know who this guy is, and he drops the money with this guy. And this guy is a Lebanese money launderer who then, like, flies off to Beirut a couple of days later. And then the money moves through these sorts of various means to eventually end up in Colombia. And those people like that money launderer, they're not dealing in drugs. They're not trafficking drugs. They are trafficking in money, and and they are they are taking a cut. You know? And it's a big business. You know? They're... Yeah. And the and the the the rate they charge could be, you know, depending on the market, it could be ten percent. It could be five percent. But they're the people who allow this trade to happen. Without them, it wouldn't work because you wouldn't be able to pay people, you know, because you you know, it's just it's just a leg... Critical logistical, problem you have to overcome in that sort of business or organization where you you have your cash on the ground, but how do you get your cash to the people who are supplying you thousands of miles away? So I found that sort of money laundering as a service, world fascinating.  

Aidan Larkin

And I think that was highlighted. I think it was an event that that you and I were at a couple months ago maybe with with RUSI. The NCA highlighted that in operation destabilize where you had this sort of Russian linked money laundering network, which had this no, enormous, enormous scale. I'm just looking it up now. I know across thirty plus countries, and it's deeply entwined with ransomware, drug gangs, sanctioned elites, and Russian espionage espionage. You can nearly say that. But what was interesting for me was that it was the opposite. It was the cash for crypto. So they were one of those nodes that you said, and they were like, bring us your cash, and we will sort of get this in... Into the network. Were you seeing the same, sort of interaction? Or I suppose if you were looking at fourteen to seventeen, that maybe, you know, crypto wasn't maybe as big of a... Would I put in words in your mouth, but was with... Did crypto play a large part in in much of that, or did that come up in meant much of your research?  

Miles Johnson

No. It didn't at all, actually. And it's quite interesting. I mean, the the people I was speaking to, there's quite a lot of debate over, you know, the the role of crypto and, you know, I think, there's some money laundering, law enforcement people I speak to who, obviously think that crypto is a massively important growing part of money laundering. And then there are others who say, okay. Crypto is really cool and trendy, but, really, at the end of the day, the vast amount of money laundering is still just. And so, you know, there is a, you know, that case you mentioned, the NCA case was really interesting because it was one of a, you know, relatively few few, like, sort of in the wild case studies and examples of this sort of, behavior becoming public and... You know? I think it's sort of, it clearly still is a, it clearly is a thing. I think it's just the, you know, one of the simplest ways, one of the undetectable ways to, launder money is still in, you know, cash. You know? And it's just a... You know, crypto makes it a lot easier, and a lot of criminals will be taking advantage of that, especially across international borders. But, it's still... You know, it's easier to be, detected doing stuff in crypto than it is with, physical cash because, obviously, physical cash is entirely fungible and leaves no trace, and, you don't need to use a tumbler. It's just a... It's a pain. You just... It's just the annoying thing is you have, you know, you might have still...

Aidan Larkin

And there's a high technical barrier to entry as well, and I think people forget that some of the people running these networks, you know, maybe are someone in their new sixties or seventies. They weren't brought up or educated around crypto assets. There may be a natural skepticism. No. No. And it's not an ageist thing to say that... You know, the practical realities of... If you're the head of an organized crime boss and someone says pitches you, there's a thing with a ledger wallet and a, I mean, lots of people and lots of new police chiefs from a generational point of view are skeptical about know how crypto works. So I think there is... I think those that are money laundering using crypto understand the technology and also... Or have been convinced that this is the way to go, and we're seeing that. The reason I was so keen to speak to you today as well was... I mean, we talk about asset recovery. At AssetReality is the the problem we're trying to solve. Yes. We... You know, our main... We're mainly known for digital asset seizure. We built a platform to make digital asset seizure easier, but it's because it's one of the key things within the asset recovery world that we're trying to solve because... And you sum it up perfectly. I mean, the absolute elephant in the room is always the trillions laundered through the existing financial system pre crypto and has continued to this day that there is just no unimaginable amounts of money. We don't even know how much it is. We just estimate it. UNODC puts it at four to six percent. Other sets closer to ten percent of GDP. We just accept trillions are laundered every single year despite decades and decades of compliance training and enforcement and investment and billions spent on the compliance industry. I mean, what what what sort of led you to the to to this particular story? And I think the layperson will be very interested in why is... No. The the central character of the book, there's no... The the Jack Kelly, who I think you had said at our talk, his name almost sounds made up, and it's it's a dictreous thing. It's not. What has a DEA, no US based entity, and their officer got? Why are they acting on these cases in Italy? I think, you know, the layperson may not understand. And what led you to him and this particular story that that is the sort of central spine of the book?  

Miles Johnson

So the way in which, US law enforcement sort of come into the picture is, you know, the book captures this moment in, the history of the DEA, which is quite... I found quite fascinating where, you know, sort of in the period after nine eleven and that sort of early noughties period, there was this really big expansion in the sort of mandate through a sort of series of US, legislation changes and the focus of the DEA into being the sort of much more aggressive internationally focused agency, which was sort of doing all of these things that people had never really seen before in terms of pulling off these kind of quite crazy international sting operations targeting sort of arms dealers and and, you know, people who weren't directly immediately tied into, drug trafficking. And that was because, you know, under sort of various, changes to sort of your statute, there were sort of expansions in the remit of the DEA in terms of what they could go after. You know? There was sort of people who were interacting with, designated terrorist organizations, which had any interaction at all with any type of drugs activity, you know, which could be quite broad. So, in terms of, the, you know, the DEA in that period in time, it had a massive jump in its, funding. It was given a lot more tools. So it was sort of formally brought into the US intelligence community. And, you know, Jack Kelly, the, DEA agent, in the book, he joins this thing called the special operations division, which, had... Or it existed since the nineties, I think, but it was, had really been beefed up by that point. And it was sort of... Its sort of main role was sort of... As a as a sort of clearing house almost for all of this information that was coming in from the DEA's networks of informants from around the world and DEA, you know, agents. And they would get this sort of intelligence, you know, from one country, which might actually interact with something happening in another country. And so someone might be able to, you know, someone in France, for example, might be able to get somehow into a money laundering network, which is interacting with, you know, a drug trafficking organization in Colombia. And so that would be routed back to the special operations division through people like Jack, and then they would be able to start building cases sort of which would cross borders and working with the agents on the ground. And so, the stuff in the book is really at the sort of almost the tail end of that moment where there were this there was this brief period of time, you know, around a decade where the DEA was, yeah, really doing these things that quite surprised and shocked people, in terms of how audacious they were. You know, they were they were doing these really complicated undercover sting operations in, you know, faraway countries, pulling in people like Victor Bout and like, Monza Alcazar, these, you know, famous arms arms dealers and, you know, working on them undercover for months and then doing these dramatic sort of arrests in hotel rooms in Thailand and stuff like that. People, you know, in other US, government agencies were quite sort of shocked and surprised by this. People were also sort of, I guess, to a certain extent, envious. You know, it really depends on who you're or who you're talking to. But, people  

Aidan Larkin

But but but but this is the agency that took out Escobar, you know, in a pretty sort of outlandish sort of way.  

Miles Johnson

Yeah. I mean, you know, they have a long history of doing these things and, and, you know, they they were getting results, in terms of bringing in these big figures, some of whom people thought were sort of untouchable, but they were also ruffling feathers to say the least. And people say, you know, what are they doing in this place? You know, why are they doing stuff in the Middle East? Like, why are they doing stuff in Asia? Like, what does that have to do with them? And, and so like all... You know, sort of a really important part of the book is, you know, is trying to capture the sort of complexities of those sorts of interagency, dynamics. And, you know, Jack Kelly is working on his, his his sort of cases, which are around money laundering connected to the Middle East and Hezbollah and and, and how that interacts with Colombian drug traffickers and stuff in Europe. And and, you know, he runs up against a lot of obstacles. And, you know, his boss, who was the head of the special operations division at the time, a man called Derek Maltz, you know, sort of warns him early on in the book. He basically says, you know, like, you're gonna you're gonna get into a lot of, a lot of scrapes. There's gonna be a lot of people trying to stop you. And and I think, you know, the the the thing about this book is that it is not, meant to be... Is it's it's... It is a depiction of, you know, is is reality is what happened. And it is, like things happen in real life. It is not... It doesn't fit perfectly into sort of a Hollywood, narrative arc in a sense of, you know, it really shows that, actually, the process of doing these sorts of cases can be extremely frustrating. It's not this sort of, perfect unfolding thing where there's, like, you know, team of police do this perfect case and everything's perfect.  

Aidan Larkin

You know, I I have to interrupt you because that's what made me chuckle when I when I was researching the book for this this podcast. Some of the reviews that weren't as positive as others were like, it's a bit complicated. And you're like, of course, it's complicated. It is international organized crime, narcotics, and money laundering with organizations that were formed on maybe no ideological grounds who blatantly are making their money, no selling heroin. Let's not not let beat around the bush or others that are claiming they are... Know they have a cause. And I've seen this everywhere from, you know, Northern Ireland where people are, you know, religiously sort of motivated allegedly, but then they'll have lots of operations they do together because they make money that way. And no drugs and prostitution and counterfeiting is all fine, but no, how dare you sort of know... Take my my religion into bad name. And I think you highlight that beautifully where, actually, if the profit is right, if the the trust framework is in place, you can have cyber criminals working with religiously motivated groups, working with no international narcotics dealers. Like, if it works, it works. And it it... That is almost like the holiday... The the Hollywood cliche of them all sitting around. I mean, it's not just the five families who all come from the same, like, you know, religious or traditional economic background. It literally is the cliche Middle Eastern mysterious man and the cyber hacker and the, you know, Latin American sort of drug smuggler and the... So so, yeah, that that for me was one of the things that drew me to it because people that will try and wrap this up as a simple Hollywood arc, I mean, are doing a disservice to the, like, the men and women who are trying to investigating what is clearly the most complicated crime type in the world, which in my personal opinion, which is why we have the lowest detection rates in the world. That's why we have this sort of famous one percent. So sorry. I had to cut in on your on your naysayers who said it's a bit complicated.  

Miles Johnson

Yeah. No. I believe I believe you if you say that. I mean, it's, yeah. As you say, you know, it's ultimately, you know, this is a this is a work of  

Aidan Larkin

It's like quantum physics. I I couldn't follow it on

Miles Johnson

You know, it's it's a it's a it's a work of nonfiction. It's it's a it's it's journalism. It's, you know, it's it's, based on, everything is is, is is factual in this book. So it it depicts, or, reality. You know, reality is is, sadly, is not simple, and, and, things are extremely complicated. And often these, these sort of phenomena are stuff which are, you know, mind blowing and complicated occurring across, you know, multiple borders involving lots of different types of groups. And, and so the sort of neat Hollywood ending is... You know, I don't wanna give away, the ending in the book, but, you know, it's, you know, things, things in these sorts of cases don't always end up as a sort of happily ever after.

Aidan Larkin

What do you mean? It it doesn't end with all money laundering stopped and all narcotics shutdown and all terrorism stopped? Damn it.

Miles Johnson

No. No. I will I will, see. Yeah. Spoiler alert. It does not end with all of those things, being defeated. And and so, you know, there is this element of, you know, it's about institutions. You know? So it's also... This is really a book which, because it looks at, you know, the DEA and the Italian mafia side and the the the, side in Syria, with Hezbollah. You know, these are all... It focuses on three people who ultimately are working in institutions. They may be very different institutions with a completely different, aims, but these are three people who at least ostensibly, in different ways, believe in something. Now, you know, if you are, you know, in the, you know, Italian mafia guy like Salvatore in the book, you know, your beliefs are pretty dark and twisted, but you have a... You believe at least you have a moral code. Yeah. You think you're right. And, you know, he, you know, I've read through, like, thousands and thousands of pages of, you know, sort of evidence and transcripts and wiretap intercepts and, you know, testimony and stuff and witnesses and stuff about, you know, this guy. And, you know, he's someone who clearly believes that his worldview is correct. You know? They're like, he he he is, the people who he's he's, he's sort of killing to a certain extent, like, deserve it. Whereas, you know, someone like, Mustafa Badaruddin, the, the Hezbollah, sort of, bomb bomber... Bomb maker in this book, he is someone who, again, sort of clearly goes on some sort of ideological journey, you know, in terms of this is someone who now is in their fifties, who took that path when they were in their twenties. People sort of objectives and motivations, and ideology change over time. And, you know, with Jack Kelly, he's someone who is trying to, you know, bring in these cases in a world which is so sort of sprawling and, chaotic where, you know, there's just these oceans of, you know, sort of illicit money, like, traveling around the world. And he is, sort of faced to try to kind of try and place some order, some sort of, you know, sort of, law enforcement sort of interpretative, like, sort of, like, framework on what he's seeing. And, all of these people are, in these institutions, which make life in some ways quite difficult for them. You know, ultimately, the things that they believe in will, to to a certain extent, end up betraying them or disappointing them in some way. You know, like, Salvatore has a has a sort of, you know, works within a system that sort of, you know, ultimately doesn't really... Isn't really there for him when he needs it in the end. You know, Jack Kelly is, constantly fighting against, you know, these sort of internal, roadblocks and things that just make, you know, him... You know, he... This is a potentially a career case. This is something where he, you know, at a certain point in his story, he believes that he's gonna bring down this huge case. And, you know, he, you know, the the things which, things don't always work out perfectly. And, I think so. In terms of the sort of complexity of the book, it's... It really is that it, you know, in in real in real life, as I'm sure all of your listeners know, like, things don't always, work out in the perfect Hollywood, way, and things can be quite frustrating. But there's, for me, that was a really important part of, the story because that's the way things things actually are.  

Aidan Larkin

Yeah. I I couldn't I couldn't agree more. And we have actually had on the podcast, and we've had very, very senior executives and chiefs from IRS criminal investigation, US Secret Service. I mean, these are people, to your point, that operate in agencies that people probably are surprised that they're involved in the cases they're involved in. When you say to the person in the straight Secret Service and they think, you know, protecting the president, and they probably don't realize that Secret Service has a mandate over anything that affects the US dollar. They can literally lawfully put their nose in any sort of case. Similar with IRS CI, it's financial crime, not tax even though it's IRS. So, again, every single child exploitation case, narcotics case, human trafficking case, they all have no financial element to it. And am I right in saying that the... And, again, this is just my assumption, but the DEA, I mean, post nine eleven, the Patriot Act, a lot of the anti money laundering controls were actually on the books from the... Like, way back in the Banking Secrecy Act in the late seventies, but they really got supercharged with the the Patriot Act. I mean, you and I had mentioned sort of before we jumped on camera, I mean, the underlying sort of nature and wealth of a lot of these large organized crime books that no funds terrorism, basically is the underlying narcotics. So is that the reason why people will see you know, DEA operating on a narcotics case in, you know, across, you know, the Middle East and across Italy, for example? Is it because of that link that the narcotics plays a part in the terrorist financing, or what was what was your understanding of why the DEA will be involved in one of those types of cases? Or was it just purely narcotics globally? They have a remit because it'll eventually hit American soil.  

Miles Johnson

Yeah. I think it's sort of broadly speaking a bit of both of those. I mean, in terms of the the legislative prongs which they would be using, I think the sort of... You know, in the sort of backdrop to that period, there was very... You know, this this sort of stuff was really happening at its sort of height in the sort of, you know, the first decade of the twenty first century where was really much, you know, in the shadow of nine eleven and the, the sort of the the reaction and the reshaping of, US law enforcement and sort of counterterrorism, in those years. So, everything was sort of, to a certain extent, being framed that way. But then also, you know, you have, you have you have sort of sort of, at its heart, like, this sort of central problem, which has always been there for the DA where it's like, you know, if you are a trafficking organization, you might be... You're not necessarily almost certainly gonna be in the United States. So you might be, you might be trafficking stuff into the United States directly, or you might be trafficking it indirectly, but still playing an important role in that. But if you're not in the United States, how does US law enforcement go after you? You know, unless they can prove that a crime is taking place on US soil. And so so we're like... So there have been various sort of, sort of laws and change the laws, which sort of allowed that sort of, overseas activities. So overseas activities always been in the sort of DNA of that organization. As you said, you mentioned Escobar, like, going back to that, like, you know, big footprints operating on the ground and in in countries like Colombia. And so to some extent, this was like a, expansion of expansion of that. But it's also, you know, they can do things which other people can't, you know, to a certain, where, they can't... Firstly, they're sort of less threatening than, other agencies when they're on foreign soil. You know, foreign governments in lots of countries might get quite twitchy if, you know, people from the FBI are doing stuff, on their soil, whereas with the DEA, they can forge quite, strong relationships with local law enforcement.  

Aidan Larkin

No one's gonna no one's gonna say yes to narcotics. Like, it's always... There there there is no religious ideology. There's no... We should all be on the same page in relation to sort of narcotics globally.  

Miles Johnson

Yeah. And and they can... And then and then less... They're less... They have less of a, you know, they have sort of a intelligence sort of, angle to them, and they can sort of... You can be, like, see... Seen as sort of, willing and helpful partners to local law enforcement and, you know, share, you know, sort of, information, you know, which they... You know, coming into them. And so I think that they've they've been pretty effective at building those good, good partnerships. But, you know, we have to say, like, in... That was then. You know, the context has changed hugely now. I mean, you know, we haven't had, to my knowledge, one of those, like, really big blockbuster sting operations in a long time. And, you know, the focus has changed, you know, to a certain extent with the political climate in the United States. You know? So that, you know, that unit as it was, you know, and these sorts of teams of agents doing these big complicated, you know, months long, even years long sort of sting operations are sort of being, you know, just to an extent wound down or, you know, there is, you you know, there's important reasons for that, you know, that we, you know, we said that this sort of stuff is happening in, the shadow of nine eleven and, you know, with the sort of, you know, war fatigue in the United States and sort of people being, sort of talking of, like, sort of forever wars and, you know, wanting to get out of them. The appetite for doing big overseas stuff has diminished, whilst at the same time, you've had a huge opioid crisis in the United States. And people politically, you know, sort of in congress and the like would say, wait a minute. Why are you guys, you know, running around the Balkans chasing an arms dealer when we've got a huge opioid crisis on the streets of America? And so it makes it, the sort of political, winds have have changed. And so that era, which is in this book and probably closes with this book, you know, in that sort of time period around twenty sixteen, seventeen, you know, that might never come back. It was sort of sort of this quite audacious and unprecedented law enforcement experiment, which, had never happened before and may never be repeated.  

Aidan Larkin

Yeah. And especially with knowing this push and, obviously, accelerated by by COVID and lockdowns, and and now we seem to be in this no cyber scam fraud epidemic that is no... Now becoming industrialized, then I think that there's there's probably countless books in the offing right now. Just looking at the sheer industrial scale, it was actually just just this weekend, I was watching an old French foreign film, Only the Animals from, like, twenty nineteen. And it actually does a really interesting job at looking at the Ivory Coast and the cyber scams and romance scams. Mhmm. And and just as you were talking about, like, Hezbollah and others and organizations that were, you know, founded on a, you know, political or religious ideology, but then make a lot of money from, you know, trafficking drugs and people. For example, it was interesting the perspective that a lot of the cyber scams were almost blaming that there was almost... I'm not saying civic pride, and I'm not just I'm not just putting in a whole bucket of people, but it was interesting the motivation and the why you can commit these things. It was more a case of... No. It was very much clearly blamed on. Look at the state of our country because of the colonial history. I mean, we're just taking back. We're we're fighting back. And it wasn't... And when you see some of these scam factories, it's not like... We've seen some horrific cases in sort of Southeast Asia, highlighted by a former guest of the show Aaron West and Operation Shamrock, where you have factories in, like, Myanmar in places, casinos converted that are call centers now, and they're filled with trafficked people to go and scam. But then you also have organizations that are, you know, running these sort of large sort of scam networks. And I think as you're right, I think we might have moved on now to the next wave of political appetite that it'll probably take something like tragically a terrorist incident or something to refocus because, you know, you know, it's better than anybody's a journalist if it's, you know, it's the old of it bangs or bleeds. It'll tend to lead. And that was one of my complaints as someone now outside of law enforcement looking back and looking at the research. I mean, why don't we have standalone money laundering charges? You can do that internationally. Virtually every country in the world has legislation for money laundering, and it is very rare that there is a money laundering case despite all of the stats and facts and evidence. I think one of the few standalone money laundering cases in the world was a conviction in related to the OneCoin scam in Kosovo. And even that, I think was appealed, and it looks like it might be wobbly. Now, and it was a pure, you're just laundering, whereas usually, you catch the drug dealer and you get the money laundering charge, or you catch, you know, you catch anyone in any crime and money laundering is always a bolt on. I mean, from the research that you've carried out, I know we've talked about the the sheer complexity, but is that it? Is that what it's down to? What... Why why aren't you able as part of your research to see dozens, if not scores, of these types of cases and these types of results? And why is it that people like, you know, Jack Kelly, your sort of central character, why is... Does it seem so difficult for them to, you know, fight the good fight and then go and do these large cases? What what do you think is the big challenge about investigating these money laundering cases? Is it just the sheer scale and complexity?  

Miles Johnson

Well, I think, it's, to a certain extent that, you know, is, it is, these are really, really hard labor intensive, resource intensive cases that can, you know, take years, be really hard to pin down, and you might... As you mentioned, you know, in some countries, you might not even have the the laws in place to really, you know, really, get a a big conviction. You know, the, I think political appetite can be. I don't wanna overly generalize, but, you know, could people. I think no one believes that money laundering is a victimless crime, but it's going to attract less attention than other crimes where the victims are more apparent. You know, so sort of, it's seen as a less... You know, there's a maybe a perception that it's seen as a slightly less serious crime or be... That there are lots of laws

Aidan Larkin

And that's usually down to a misunderstanding of realizing it's the fuel that keeps all of the crimes going. If there is no money laundering, there is no commercial appetite to go and commit crimes.  

Miles Johnson

Absolutely. You know, absolutely. It is the fuel, and it is, you know, it is sometimes, you know, the really, like, the the key enabler of these sorts of bigger networks. And, they they wouldn't be able to function without that money laundering... Funk... Without that money laundering function. And I I think, you know, you can see this where in some jurisdictions, you know, the the sentencing for money laundering is pretty low. You know? It's, you know, if you just, you know, if you traffic, twenty million euros of cocaine and you're caught, you will go down for a very long time, pretty much in most places. But if you launder twenty million euros, you know, you might get sometimes four years, five years, you know, depending on sort of... You know, it's it's possible. I've seen lots of cases where people have had, like, you know, seven year convictions and got out in, like, five or something. And, For multi billion dollar laundering? Yeah. And where, you know, the evidence in... In every single case, I think, without exception, you know, they're always like, oh, I had no idea. I never knew that I was doing this. You know? And it... There is that sort of, I guess, plausible deniability where, you know, you can make a legal argument compared to being caught red handed with, you know, sort of guns or drugs, you know, with money. You'll be like, oh, but I didn't know where the money came from. And I think that is always just going to be in every money laundering case, probably the most obvious defense. But I think, you know, and also some of the... The profile of these people can be different, you know. So whereas, you know, sort of gun gun runners or drug traffic or something might be sort of... Have the appearance of, you know, hardened people from the criminal underworld potentially with, you know, strings of previous offenses.

Aidan Larkin

Yeah. with Criminal records.  

Miles Johnson

Yeah. The money launderers could be very boring kind of, you know, white collar professionals who are just like...  

Aidan Larkin

You can call them you can call them bankers. Let's call them what they are.  

Miles Johnson

Yeah. Or or bankers. You know, they could just be people who will say, you know, they appear like upstanding members of society, and they'll they'll just say, oh, you know, I never knew that this guy was, you know, sort of drug lords from the Balkans, you know, when I was moving his money into this investment fund in Luxembourg. Like, I had no clue. Like, I did my KYC. I did... I... You know, we did the due diligence. Yeah. And so, you know, and that that is frequently, you know, quite... Probably quite effective. And and people... You know, I've seen this a lot, you know, where people really should know, and it's fairly implausible that they don't know. And the thing looks fairly, at least in hindsight, fairly, screamingly obvious, but then they'll say, we did all the checks. You know, we had no idea. And and so, I think that's probably a a pretty big reason behind it. You know, it just doesn't... Unless you're... And, also, it's just a number. The numbers just, you know, just from, you know, when we write about this sort of stuff, you know, people, you know, their eyes glaze over a little bit about just

Aidan Larkin

You become numb to it. Yeah. You become numb... Like, we saw one of the, but even now we see it with the the crypto community. Now you just have to look at a list of all of the different crypto exchanges. I mean, even ones that are registered in the UK and it's like, no. Pay a multimillion pound fine and multimillion dollar fine and it doesn't even tarnish people anymore. I mean, some of the biggest players, public companies like Coinbase. I mean, it... It's not it's not a a slight on the individual members of staff, but the fact is as an organization, they have been fined. So Binance, their CEO and founder was locked up for these charges. And it's because... I mean, people used to... We used to debate a lot and, you know, when people would talk about, you know, these exchanges and, like, my theory on it is kind of... But what have we done with the traditional finance? I mean, how many people at the big banks have been blatantly involved in sanctions evasion, laundering for the cartels? How many of those individual banks and attorneys and lawyers and... No. They... Or the attorneys and lawyers who've actually been convicted? Like, how many of them have got substantial prison sentences? So if we don't set that benchmark in traditional money laundering, how then can we expect to see people in exchanges being locked up for decades?  

Miles Johnson

It just never happens. Like, you know, I've I've read so many stories about sanctions evasion, you know, with, you know, like, Russia and Iran and various places. And, you know, every single time we write... We we do one of these stories, you know, we will contact the people involved, obviously, before we publish or the bank or something. And there has never once been a case where any of the stories about this published by me or my colleagues or anyone else they have ever said, yep. I knew I knew who they were, and I... I'm sorry. Like, yep. I was breaking sanctions, and so what? Or whatever. Or, like, yep. I'm sorry. I break sanctions. I'll just say... We always say definitively, you know, we had no idea who they were. We never could have had any idea who they were. We asked them... You know, there's obviously this absurd case with, you know, we wrote a lot about, Yevgeny Progozin, the the the warlords, the boss of, the Wagner Group, the Russian mercenaries. And he was an interesting character because, obviously, he was, this sort of murderous, you know, warlord, this mercenary boss, but he was also a businessman who had a bunch of companies, loads of international shell companies, lawyers, lawyers in London, lawyers in, you know, the EU, lawyers in Russia, you know, very company formation agents, accountants. And we did a lot of stuff on his sort of, professional network. And they all just said, we could have never known that he was a warlord. It was impossible. Like, you know, we did all of our checks. And it's gone. And... Yeah. No. No. But, you know, at the time, he was, you know, the the... No. No. No. But if you Googled him, you would have seen all of this extremely credible and subsequently a hundred percent vindicated journalism showing that he was engaged in, you know, this sort of mercenary activity. And, you know, he staunchly denied it, and he sued people. But he sued journalists for reporting this stuff. You know, he hired really expensive lawyers and sued them in England, which is really, really, really, you know, dangerous for news organizations because you can rack up massive, massive bills. And he said, you know, I'm I've been emotionally, you know, caused a huge amount of emotional distress for these journalists saying that I was a warlord, you know, and then he sees them. But, you know, subsequently, obviously,  

Aidan Larkin

The warlord feelings got hurt.  

Miles Johnson

Yeah. And then subsequently, you know, like, a year later, he's running around. Firstly, he publicly admits. He's like, I actually am a warlord, and I have been one all along, and he admits it. And then he's running around on, like, rooftops in Ukraine with, like, sort of automatic weapons and stuff. So he was just completely lying. But in the time, you know, before that happened, it was, very, very difficult for anyone to report. And all of the lawyers would just say, even though there was that reporting out there, they would just say, we asked him, and he told us he wasn't a warlord. So it was fine. And that's it. I mean, that... That's the end of the story. Like, you know  

Aidan Larkin

I... I'm... I was gonna ask you what is, what is the next book? But it sounds like that could be it. I mean, I I think understanding because you... You're right. I was actually gonna ask you about, you know, because I... Again, look, we've had Oliver Bullough on the show. We've had Geoff White on on the show. And, I mean, when you hear just the sheer aggressive... There's two parts of this. The UK obviously is a large financial center, and London specifically plays a massive part in global money laundering, even if not by design or by blind eye. And I know Oliver Bellow has an entire book on sort of the UK's role and and sort of... And money laundering as a service, allegedly. That on one side, you could look at it as, well, it's just going to happen because it's a large financial center anyway. But is there scope just to ask you for your own personal opinions? Is there scope for some sort of, not necessarily retrospective, but, like, in those types of cases, there has to be accountability. You used the example a moment ago where, I I mean, you don't get a massive sentence if you're caught money laundering because how did you know when there is this plausibility almost argued. But if I'm a young teenager and I turn up in UAE or in Thailand or in Singapore and there's drugs in my suitcase and I say, I don't know how they got there. They'll say, great. You got fifty years to figure it out and off you go and the international community will go, you know, it's kinda kinda what happens over there if you get caught. Whereas we just... As you say, the ROI for money laundering is quite high because the punishment is just not the same And it is this sort of dual sort of no misunderstanding of... Doesn't seem as serious because it's not as scary as a shipment of drugs or narcotics or trafficked individuals. I mean, I I I would say you brought it on. You brought us on to this point accidentally. I mean, the reason the show is called seize and desist is because we were involved in helping a government sell a seized asset. And we got from a London law firm a wonderful cease and desist letter because how dare we help the government sell a seized asset because their third party... You know, their client, who is the offshore shell company, actually had a legal claim over the asset, and we were selling them. So just by even telling the government we would consider helping them, that got us a cease and desist. So I know exactly what you mean when I've talked to other journalists who've got these really aggressive... Is it the the slaps? They got these really aggressive sort of tools used against them. What would just just to maybe to to finish it out for for those that know... Haven't experienced it, what is it actually like pulling a book like this together? Because you're stating some big facts, like, from your own personal security and safety right up to the legal and, like, litigation line. I've, I can only imagine what that must be like, but perhaps you could share with us what it looks like and how how long is something like this in the making?  

Miles Johnson

Well, I mean, it's, it takes a while. I mean, yeah, from the from the sort of origins, you know, to the end end product, you know, I guess, takes a... It takes a really long time. But, you know, it took, me sort of, I think, probably all in, like, I don't know, four years, I think, over the... Or maybe three and a half. It it depends on how you count it because, you know, you you always... You begin the reporting on something like this. It's sort of you don't know exactly where you're gonna end up, and, you don't know exactly what you're gonna get. And, you know, there are things where, you know, you have to try and, you know, map out what you what you know that you don't know. And then, once you know that, you can sort of then start figuring out, how you might be able to find that stuff out, to what extent it's possible, who will speak to you, you know, even who is... Exists out there, who could possibly speak to you.  

Aidan Larkin

Who's who's alive?  

Miles Johnson

Yeah. Who's alive. You know, who's who's... And, you know, you're dealing with stuff in a lot of languages. Some of the languages I speak, some of the languages I don't speak. You have to, like, translate them. You know, you have to speak to people, in lots of different countries. So all of that stuff takes a long time. But I think, in terms of, you know, the the personal security stuff, I think, you know, I wouldn't wanna sort of over exaggerate that. This is something you have to be mindful of, but, you know, it's very different being based in, you know, a country like the UK than being based in, like, far. You know, there are journalists who are really based in really difficult places where reporters are regularly killed, and really tragically, there's very little consequence, for the people who are doing that. I mean, you know, one of the worst things about the Prigozhin, stuff I mentioned earlier is as this guy was sort of hiring these expensive lawyers, you know, his, there was, I think, three Russian reporters who went to investigate his activities in, Africa who were murdered. They were ambushed on a road and murdered. Oh, my god. And, no one, to my knowledge, has ever really been held responsible for, that. And so, you know, there's a sort of really sickening side to that sort of thing where you have someone who is using their ill gotten gains to hire these, like, extremely expensive, you know, respectable law firms whilst also, you know, hire... You know, using hired goons to sort of murder reporters, with the other hand. And, so, you know, that sort of thing is, is is is is just terrible. But, you know, and, but I think in terms of just the overall, the the overall process of the book is something where, you know, you are also dealing with situations where people have different recollections of events. And so you have to spend a lot of time talking to... Trying to talk to as many people who are there as possible, to sort of verify what you're hearing and understand, you know, the different interpretations of... You know, people can be in one meeting, and they can, can be a contested meeting. And, obviously, you speak to two different sides. They have different views of what happened. And so, there's a lot a lot of that as well. But, yeah, it was a sort of, often, you know, one of the biggest challenges with something like this is actually not what you put in, but what you leave out. Because you can have a huge amount of material and stuff and sort of side stories and angles, which, you know, you have to be... Try and be disciplined and, and not just... You can't just put everything in there. So actually having in. Yeah, having too much material, it's, you know, it wasn't necessarily a problem I thought I was gonna have, but I ended up with, you know, so many things, you know, so many different... You know, relating to stuff in Italy, you know, sort of, you know, dozens of, legal cases spanning over thousands of pages, you know, dating for... You know, spanning over, like, twenty years, you know, just relating to one family. And, you know, you can you can really read into... You know, you can find out so much about  

Aidan Larkin

Do you enjoy a Netflix special and just go down the rabbit hole?  

Miles Johnson

Yeah. There's a lot of rabbit holes you can go down to. So so trying to stay, trying to stay disciplined, it's also a big, big challenge. It's not sort of just what you put in, but also what you leave out.  

Aidan Larkin

I know that anyone reading the book will really enjoy, for me, especially, I... And I don't know if it's a a wider methodology, but take all the credit yourself. But I loved your your sort of referencing at the back and the notes referencing and being able to specifically sort of jump in. I find that really, really useful. I also know that, coming out of this show, we always like to make sort of recommendations and and... Or or insights, and I think we've done a great job at summing up. If it takes you this amount of time and complexity to try and map this and understand this, it probably does explain the fact why we don't see. Because imagine being a police officer restricted by borders, having multiple cases on, and also having all the bureaucratic things that you highlighted. For me, the book is a great example of why we don't have many money laundering investigations as in you can only imagine what it's like without a tenacious officer trying to push things on and without political support. For me, I want sort of every politician to read it and understand unless we actually take away some of these barriers, we'll just simply not get these big cases being dealt with anymore. I also want to give you the, the the moniker and the credit that you're in the the the school and the alumni of authors who can actually say without Chat GPT. Because I think that anyone going forward for the next until... From now on, it sort of seems like from end of 2024 onwards, there's always that. A friend of mine Yeah. Like, Whereas when you've had to put this together from actually reading all of the stuff yourself, but it... There should almost be a new, like, a pricing premium that applies to anything sort of pre 2024.  

Miles Johnson

That's funny. I I hadn't really thought about that. Yeah. When I was in the book, Chat GPT wasn't a thing. Yeah. I mean  

Aidan Larkin

Say give me give me twenty thousand pages on a... Or twenty thousand words on a better version of this book, and in seconds, it comes up.  

Miles Johnson

I mean, in a way, it's an interesting point. I mean, it's one of the things that sort of, at least as far as I've seen it, AI won't be very good at doing, is a a lot of a lot of the stuff in this book is sort of connecting, you know, seemingly, you know, unconnected things up to the point of where one legal case falls off and another legal case opens up, you know, where frequently in these sorts of international criminal cases, you can have, sort of people who are sort of, captured in both. You know? And the and the crime sort of cross borders, and they interact with different things. And that, you know, one of the... Well, just a small case study in that is obviously, you know, one of the people that, Jack Kelly was involved in arresting was this, arms dealer in, the Czech Republic. And, he was later, the people who, he was he was arrested in the Czech Republic, and a bunch of Czech citizens were then kidnapped in Lebanon and held hostage, to get him released. And then... Yeah. So, basically, that was an interesting example of, you know, a sort of an American case where, actually, also, there was a whole concurrent check case related to those hostages, and they're actually talking about exactly the same thing, but, they hadn't really ever been viewed in, kind of, in sort of... In the... In context in the same time. And so I think, yeah, that's a... So I wonder maybe, you know, we'll see how AI does with that. But I don't know. That that sort of stuff in different languages, different countries, different cases. It's, they're not things which are obviously connected, but they are. And so  

Aidan Larkin

No. It's it's something... It's a slight aside, but it's something that I think people need to be very, very wary of. I worry genuinely that, like, future policy and things. When you see the amount of work that gets done and churned out across governments, across journalists, across everything, That is obviously... No. There's gonna be a, good use of AI. But even in, like, prepping for this show and the work that we do, the amount of times we'll give it a task and it... Like, the... I don't think people realize the scale of AI hallucinations. Like, literally, a previous guest who I'd said, I don't wanna ask the same guest. They've done, like, fifty podcast in a row, and I said, I don't wanna ask the same questions. What are the questions you know what I'd be thinking of just to give me some sort of inspiration? And it brought up, like, this anecdote about this time he was at this thing. I know the guy and I was like, that... No. I don't think that's something he was involved in. And when I drilled down, I went, oh, yes. Sorry. That never happened. I said, but where did you draw that from? Oh, it's complicated the extreme how we know we do research, but, basically, that story is not true. And I'm... I would just be... I would love to know how many things are just making their way through and being passed on as fact but I suppose that that that can happen in journalism as well depending how good the editors are. I have stuff can... Can sort of slip the net. I think there can almost be a part two, Miles, where we come back in a couple of years because now we've had this big announcement from the UK with the FCA and NCA and the NEC where there's these new sort of strategic pillars in terms of what the focus is on. I think a lot of the challenges you highlighted in the book, Interpol's new, you know, silver notice on seized assets combined with the the big interagency stuff that Europe poll is driving, things like project asset. We saw a lot of this and, operation VINETIC coming out, so I'm sure there'll be plenty, plenty more stories, emerging in the space. But I'm sorry we've taken up so much time. I always try and plan these podcasts to be thirty minutes or so.

Miles Johnson

Not at all.

Aidan Larkin

I was like, I know it's an interesting story and I didn't I didn't want to stop. So, yeah, thank you so much for your for your time today. And, yeah, we will put a link into the book on the on the podcast notes as well. So hugely grateful for you, joining us today.  

Miles Johnson

Well, thank you so much for having me. It's been, yeah, it's been a real pleasure. Thank you.  

Lo Furneaux

Our podcasts are for informational purposes only. They are not intended to provide legal, tax, financial, and or investment advice. Listeners must consult their own advisers before making any decisions on the topics being discussed.