December 14, 2023 • 24 mins
Back in the Netherlands, the high-tech unit of the Dutch police works to crack the murder case.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin Just a quick note before we start today's show.
You can listen to Hot Money the New Narcos ad
free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. Find Pushkin Plus
on the Hot Money Show page, in Apple Podcasts or
at pushkin dot fm, slash Plus. With your subscription, you'll
(00:36):
also get access to ad free binge opportunities from Malcolm
Gladwell's Revisionist History, The Happiness Lab from Doctor Lori Santos,
and tons of other top shows in the Pushkin Network.
Sign up in Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm,
slash Plus.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Previously on Hot Money, we discovered how do You Bui
became the perfect place for the supercartel to come together.
This time, I want to take you back to Dublin
to Lower Baggert Street. It's a smart neighborhood close to
the city center, filled with Grand Georgian houses. It's April
(01:17):
twenty sixteen and Irish detectives have received a tip off
one of the apartments on the street is a Kinahan
Hotel safe house. But when they get there they find
someone else. A guy with a big belly speaking broken English.
He's got some designer shoes, a bunch of fancy watches
and several IDs, each with a different name.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
You know, here's this guy who had a number of identities.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Shamus Boland, chief superintendent in the Irish Police.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
He was arrested for a possession of false documents and
there was no certainty about his identity at all. It's
following his arrest and US issuing an assistance request across
Europe that within a number of errors, the Dutch police
were in touch with US and they identified him from
the fort of graphs on fingerprints and senior Dutch police
(02:12):
officers bordered a plane immediately and flew to Dublin.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
The Dutch police scrambled to get to island because the
man they find in the flat is a murder broker
who's a top enforcer for members of the Supercartel. He's
the one who police suspect arranged the murder we heard
about in episode one, a contract killing taken out on
a man hiding from the Iranian regime and living undercover
(02:36):
in our mayor ali Ma Thummad. When I heard about this,
I first started to see what ali Ma Thummad's death
might reveal about the transformation of international organized crime, because
it raised a big question, how did a Dutch criminal
working with a cocaine supercartel get mixed up in a
murder that seems to have been ordered by Iran. At
(02:57):
this stage, no one can prove the link to Iran.
We still don't know who gave the murder broker his orders.
There's no smoking gun, but something is quietly happening in
a high tech unit of the Dutch police that's about
to blow the case wide open. It's the start of
something huge, a breakthrough that will make the global criminal
(03:18):
underworld shudder. I'm Miles Johnson and this is Hot Money
the New Narcos episode five Nerds Versus Narcos. Last time,
(03:55):
we heard about how the supercartel are ramping up their
operations from Dubai. European police can't touch them there, and
their huge criminal operations back home are booming in the Netherlands.
The ripples have started to reach Paul Veroks.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
The first five weeks, I didn't tell anyone. I didn't
even tell my girlfriend. I was trying to get the
heat away.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Remember Paul, he's the crime reporter with the leather jacket
and the gold hoop hearing, the guy who likes to
meet with gangsters in public places like bars and coffee shops.
It's Paul who broke the news that the electrician killed
an al Mayor was actually a man on the run
from the Iranian regime. But one day, Paul gets a
different kind of tip from a source, and this one's
(04:40):
about him. He hears the group of criminals started to
talk about him. They think he's got information, information that
links them to several recent gangland killings, so.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
They decided to have me assassinated so that my information
could not reach the news or the police.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I was pretty stunned when I found out about the
threats to Paul's life. I've worked in Italy and I've
written about the Italian mafia, and I've spent time with
state prosecutors living under police protection and reporters who fear
for their lives. But a reporter hasn't been killed in
Italy for many years, and neither has a judge. Now,
in the Netherlands, one of the richest and most politically
(05:22):
stable countries in the world, organized crimes seem to be
out of control. More and more murders were happening as
the top kingpins tightened their grip on the drugs market
and Paul's reporting on it, it landed a target on
his back. At first, he doesn't tell anyone. He just
keeps trying to figure out what's.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Going on day by day, week by week. The source
it provided new information.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
So Paul's able to keep safe for now, but there's
a limit to how long he can go on like this.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
I didn't talk to the police about it, and.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
He faces a dilemma. If he tells the police, he
knows he won't be able to do his work. Understandably,
criminals aren't so keen on meeting a reporter with a
police escort.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
As a journalist, I needed to stay in the It's
one of my weapons.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
But he chooses to make a bold move. He reaches
out to the criminals directly, the ones who are after him.
He sends them a message through an intermediary and tells
them he knows about the threats.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
That's the same the police will do if they know
about a plan to kill someone, they'll go to the
guys involved and ring the door and tell them we
know what you're up to, don't.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
It's not long before Dutch law enforcement also finds out
about the threats and one of Paul's police contacts calls
them up.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
He told the ball a very bad information, but we
need to meet now. So I told him, let's go
to my house. I'll arrange some coffee and cookies, and
then we'll be having an uncomfortable discussion because you are
not going to tell me what you know, Indie Deil,
and I won't tell you what I know, Indie deal pulling.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
The policemen sit down and have a chat over coffee
and cookies, which is possibly the most dartrous repond you
can imagine to any situation. And it quickly becomes clear
their information matches.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Up, and then all kinds of a lot of people
from the government got involved.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
He tries to keep working, but it becomes clear that
the people who are after him they haven't given up.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
And then one day it was clear that if we
wouldn't leave now, we would not be safe anymore.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Pauland's govern now race to pack their bags because they've
been told they have to move to a safe house, a.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Very luxurious place, much more luxury is than our normal apartment.
And I was transported like the king, quite literally, because
the same organization that secured me secures the king. So
I was in a luxury but it was like a
golden cage because I couldn't get out. I couldn't get
anywhere without a group of people, well trained, well armed
(08:04):
people around me. That's a weird way to live and
a weird way to do your job. But they made
it possible for me to work. There hasn't been one
day I've not been working because of this.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
And it's not just the threats against Paul. Really crazy
things start to happen. Criminals fire a rocket launcher the
offices of a Dutch magazine that's been running stories about
drugs traffickers. No one is hurt, but the message is
very clear journalists and how fair game? And if you
choose to report on us, you're choosing to put your
(08:42):
life in danger. It's sort of like Paul and his
colleagues aren't just crime journalists anymore. They're on the front
line covering a full blown attack on Dutch society and
the men behind it all. They aren't even in the Netherlands.
They're in Dubai, living the high life and far out
of the reach of law enforcement. But police are about
(09:07):
to make a breakthrough that will change everything.
Speaker 5 (09:19):
I really got enthusiastic on that day hearing the panic.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Take a moment to imagine someone who strikes terror into
the hearts of the world's most murderous criminals, and I
can guarantee you're not picturing Martin. Engbert. Martin's slight and
softly spoken, thoughtful. He has a bit of the air
of a tech guy as Silicon Valley blue sky thinker
in a Steve jobstyle black turtleneck. Martin is the Dutch
(09:47):
public prosecutor for high tech crime in twenty seventeen. He
and his team are working on a secret project, one
that will turn him into a sort of nerdy batman.
It all starts when Dutch beliefs notice a new gadget
showing up on the bodies of murdered gang members. They
all seem to be carrying a particular and peculiar type
of cell phone.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
They don't have a camera, the camera has removed. They
don't have a microphone. The microphone is removed.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
These phones are useless for calls and they're only good
for messaging. And the phone service runs through specialized companies
that offer a particular promise to their clients.
Speaker 5 (10:27):
They advertise police cannot break the encryption on the phones.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Back in the days before encrypted messages, the criminals were smart,
they would meet face to face, and if they were stupid,
they speak on the phone.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
Now, I don't want to say famous, but we are
well known for wired tepping. But the organized crime groups
know that, so the organized crime groups in the Netherlands
they don't talk about anything on the phone themselves anymore.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Technology disrupts every business sector, and drug trafficking is no different.
These cryptophones transformed the way people run organized crime groups.
You don't need to be in the same city anymore
to send an order to an underling. You don't even
need to be in the same country. You can now
run a vast and complex drug trafficking empire from Dubai
without ever getting your hands dirty. You can connect with suppliers,
(11:18):
you can manage your finances, and most importantly, you can
order murders and the police have almost no way of
seeing what you're up to. Martin and his colleagues are
determined to figure out a way to crack these phones,
but they're sort of stuck in illegal Catch twenty two.
Martin is certain that the phones are being used by
organized criminals, but he can't prove it without access to
(11:41):
the messages, and to get access he needs proof that
they really are being used for crime. So he comes
up with a solution. Don't go after the criminals, go
after the phone company. Most of the phones are made
by a small Dutch supplier called Enetcom, and most of
their servers are in Canada.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
We convinced the Canadian judge that there would be evidence
on those servers proving that Enucom was supplying telephones to criminals.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
So one morning, after getting permission from a judge, a
team from Martin's office get on a fly from Amsterdam
to Canada.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
I remember a lot of details of the day we
went to Canada. We copied six terrhabytes, which seemed a
lot of data. So everybody was really excited because you
think we have six terabytes of emails, which would be
billions of messages.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
It's a potentially huge breakthrough, a treasure trove of information
and evidence, but it's all encrypted. There are layers and
layers of passwords and digital keys, and even if they
do crack the encryption, Martin has another problem.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
And had gone try to delete all the information of
their clients. After two or three days. So you receive
an email, you read the email, you do nothing with
the email, and then after two or three days it
will self delete.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
The hackers on the high Tech team get to work.
They grind late into the night trying to break the
encryption on the messages. There's a lot of trial and error. First,
the team have to crack the master password, and to
do that they have to try millions of passwords, millions
of combinations. It takes months, and we brute forced the password.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
So we tried a lot of passwords and eventually we
were able to break the password off the key surfer
and by doing that we were able to use the
private keys. And if you have the private key sing
you have to encrypt it messengers yet down it's easy.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Martin and his colleagues have prized open a vault of
evidence about what's really going on inside European organized crime.
They can see how conspiracies unfolded minute by minute through
strings of chats between gangsters. To really set the cat
amongst the pigeons, Martin's team added a little flourish, a
sort of middle finger to the criminals.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
We send out a message to all the users of anetcom.
We told them the police is now in Canada securing
all the information of your foots, and we heard the panic.
So in an airleance. The panics within organized crime groups
started on that day.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
I've talked about the glimpses we sometimes get of organized crime,
and this it was like turning on a floodlight. It
sends shock waves to the criminal underworld, but it's about
to get even worse for them. Martin's team soon figure
out a way to recover the deleted messages, the ones
that ener common Its users believed were gone forever, and
(15:02):
suddenly a once hidden universe of crime, of alliances and
global connections is illuminated.
Speaker 5 (15:10):
A lot more information about assassinations and about the importation
of drugs.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
But for Martin, there's something even more shocking. Reading through
the messages, the police suddenly see how easy it's become
to order murders using these phones. A crime boss can
order a contract killing as easily as they would order
a pizza.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
In an Ellens there were multiple groups that you could
hire to assassinate someone. My work is hyder Chrome, so
for me it was really strange to see that there
wasn't one group or multiple groups that you could hire
to kill someone.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
And buried inside the millions of messages on the enitcom
servers is one brief conversation from November twenty fifteen. It's
a set of simple and chilling instructions sent from one
user to another. The first message reads, got a nice
job for you bro. The response, who needs to go
(16:14):
to sleep? Then it's a tug. He works in the
electricity company and drives a white van. Why he has
to go to sleep? I don't know, and I don't
even want to know.
Speaker 6 (16:39):
Every murder case deserves a solution, and you know people
should be brought to justice in Trinal but a foreign government,
especially the country's so dictatorships, or the killings in another
Western country. You know, this is a thing.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
We met with Elia in episode one. He's the local
councilor and our mayor the Dutch town where Ali Mtummad
was murdered, and thanks to Paul's reporting, Ulasse now knows
that the electrician was in fact a man on the
run from the Iranian regime. He also knows that the
people who pulled the trigger were Dutch criminals, but he
still doesn't know who gave them orders, who hired them,
(17:21):
Ulisa has a strong theory though. He thinks it has
to be the Iranian regime, the same regime that forced
his father to flee Iran decades before, but he can't
prove it. So Ulasee does everything he can to raise
awareness of the murder. He lobbies local politicians, he starts
doing radio and TV interviews about it, including with the
(17:43):
Dutch state broadcaster nosdag dot Ilon.
Speaker 6 (17:51):
So I was like, Okay, thanks for moving in the
right direction. I'm getting attention for this very important murder case.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
You were kind of going out a little bit on
your own saying something which sounds like a crazy story.
You know, as you said, it is crazy. It is
it is, and so was anyone saying you're wrong or
where's the proof?
Speaker 6 (18:13):
You know. The weird thing in politics is the official
response you get. It's like, we won't tell you anything
about an individual case. We don't know, there's no information,
don't bother. I was like, I'm not going to take
that for an answer.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Because for Uler, say, this is about a lot more
than just one murder.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
If this is true, what is the implication for Iranian
people living in the West who fled the country and
are speaking out, what's the implication for them. The key
message from the regime, it's a message to all of Europe,
We're going to find you because you know, let me
emphasize this once more. This guy, they were looking for
him for thirty five years.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
So after all of this, you were going on you know, TV,
you were giving interviews, you were you were pressing the
importance of this case and what you thought, what you
believed based on your evidence, and you're thinking about it,
what you thought really was the case. And then in
twenty nineteen, suddenly boom boom Uleas was shouting about the
(19:20):
Matomid murder to anyone who would listen. He'd lobbied his
local mayor, the police, even national politicians, and no one
gave him answers. It felt like he was banging his
head against a brick wall. And then one day.
Speaker 6 (19:34):
And I was in my office working and then boom,
my telephone like exploded, like boom, this Bush messages and
I was like, finally we're doing something back to the regime,
showing like okay, don't do this.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
The Dutch Foreign Minister has announced that, based on classified
information from the Dutch intelligence services, the government believes that
Iran was responsible for the Matomid murder and another murder
as well.
Speaker 6 (20:02):
I remember his words were like for ninety nine percent,
for sure we know that Irani has did this. It
was of course we because formerly the minister could not
conclude officially it was d Raniers. But it was like
ninety nine percent, we know we expelled them.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
The expulsion of diplomats. It might sound well, a bit
diplomatic slap on the wrist, but in foreign relations this
is a big deal, a rare move, and for Uda
say it's his own country, finally agreeing that he was
right all along, the people behind Mtammid's murder were in Tehran.
Speaker 6 (20:39):
These are important moments, but then this quite rapidly changed
to something something ugly for me.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
When Unasa does another round of news interviews linking Tehran
to the Mtummd murder and to the murder broker known
as Noofel, Novel is not happy, and even though he's
in prison awaiting trial, he finds a way to let
Ulusay know about it. A lawyer working for mister now
ful Fassi that's Novel's full name, files a legal complaint
(21:10):
against Ulas. He says he's abusing his position and making
false allegations about his client's connections to Iran.
Speaker 6 (21:17):
And I remember, you know, I'm sure you can relate
this feeling. Sometimes unfortunately this happens in life. You get
really cold and you feel the energy flowing from your
head to you. It just drains your energy. And I
got really cold, and I was like, okay, I know
who missed the fuss is. It was clear for me
(21:40):
this is pure intimidation. Like you know, fifteen years ago,
people through a rock at your window. This is the
modern form of the intimidation. We know who you are.
Stop talking about this connection.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
RELI say, tells the Dutch security services about the letter.
They decide that his life and his family are in danger.
So Ulas, just like Paul and like his own father
decades before, is now put the police protection. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (22:11):
But then they made one mistake. They didn't study my
character or my family history. So I immediately went out
to publicly and said I will not be intimidated. Go
to Hell. I will never be intimidated.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Ulas isn't shutting up because he still has too many
questions about the murder. He knows that now full Fasci
novel was found in it in a hand safe house
in Dublin, and that Nophel was the one who arranged
for Alia mctomma to be murdered. And now he knows
that the Dutch government believes it was Iran who was
ultimately behind the assassination.
Speaker 6 (22:46):
But someone spoke to mister Fassi. I don't know who.
It's not like someone from Tehran is calling mister Fussy.
That's not how things work.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
So how do things work? The supercartel seems to be
connected to this murder, but what does that connection mean?
What links these two things together? Looking into all of this,
pulling on threads, I came across a case that might
help us begin to understand.
Speaker 7 (23:16):
Somehow we established our credibility. At that point, she already
knew we were high leveled gold claff cours, probably multiaton.
We have connections to the military, which cost have developpened
the door for us.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
That's next time on Hot Money. Hot Money is a
(23:50):
production of The Financial Times and Pushkin Industries. It was
written and reported by me Miles Johnson, and if you've
got any leads or information about this story, you can
email me at new narcost ft dot com. The series
producer is Peggy Sutton. Edith Russello is the associate producer.
Fact checking is by Arthur god engineering by Sarah Bruguerer,
(24:13):
Sound design from Jake Gorsky. Jeremy Walmsley wrote the original music.
Our editor is Sarah Nix, and the executive producers are
Jacob Goldstein and Cheryl Bramley. Special thanks to Laura Clark, Marshall,
waroven Alistair macke, Breen Turner and Arlie Adlington
Pushkin Just a quick note before we start today's show.
You can listen to Hot Money the New Narcos ad
free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. Find Pushkin Plus
on the Hot Money Show page, in Apple Podcasts or
at pushkin dot fm, slash Plus. With your subscription, you'll
(00:36):
also get access to ad free binge opportunities from Malcolm
Gladwell's Revisionist History, The Happiness Lab from Doctor Lori Santos,
and tons of other top shows in the Pushkin Network.
Sign up in Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm,
slash Plus.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Previously on Hot Money, we discovered how do You Bui
became the perfect place for the supercartel to come together.
This time, I want to take you back to Dublin
to Lower Baggert Street. It's a smart neighborhood close to
the city center, filled with Grand Georgian houses. It's April
(01:17):
twenty sixteen and Irish detectives have received a tip off
one of the apartments on the street is a Kinahan
Hotel safe house. But when they get there they find
someone else. A guy with a big belly speaking broken English.
He's got some designer shoes, a bunch of fancy watches
and several IDs, each with a different name.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
You know, here's this guy who had a number of identities.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Shamus Boland, chief superintendent in the Irish Police.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
He was arrested for a possession of false documents and
there was no certainty about his identity at all. It's
following his arrest and US issuing an assistance request across
Europe that within a number of errors, the Dutch police
were in touch with US and they identified him from
the fort of graphs on fingerprints and senior Dutch police
(02:12):
officers bordered a plane immediately and flew to Dublin.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
The Dutch police scrambled to get to island because the
man they find in the flat is a murder broker
who's a top enforcer for members of the Supercartel. He's
the one who police suspect arranged the murder we heard
about in episode one, a contract killing taken out on
a man hiding from the Iranian regime and living undercover
(02:36):
in our mayor ali Ma Thummad. When I heard about this,
I first started to see what ali Ma Thummad's death
might reveal about the transformation of international organized crime, because
it raised a big question, how did a Dutch criminal
working with a cocaine supercartel get mixed up in a
murder that seems to have been ordered by Iran. At
(02:57):
this stage, no one can prove the link to Iran.
We still don't know who gave the murder broker his orders.
There's no smoking gun, but something is quietly happening in
a high tech unit of the Dutch police that's about
to blow the case wide open. It's the start of
something huge, a breakthrough that will make the global criminal
(03:18):
underworld shudder. I'm Miles Johnson and this is Hot Money
the New Narcos episode five Nerds Versus Narcos. Last time,
(03:55):
we heard about how the supercartel are ramping up their
operations from Dubai. European police can't touch them there, and
their huge criminal operations back home are booming in the Netherlands.
The ripples have started to reach Paul Veroks.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
The first five weeks, I didn't tell anyone. I didn't
even tell my girlfriend. I was trying to get the
heat away.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Remember Paul, he's the crime reporter with the leather jacket
and the gold hoop hearing, the guy who likes to
meet with gangsters in public places like bars and coffee shops.
It's Paul who broke the news that the electrician killed
an al Mayor was actually a man on the run
from the Iranian regime. But one day, Paul gets a
different kind of tip from a source, and this one's
(04:40):
about him. He hears the group of criminals started to
talk about him. They think he's got information, information that
links them to several recent gangland killings, so.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
They decided to have me assassinated so that my information
could not reach the news or the police.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I was pretty stunned when I found out about the
threats to Paul's life. I've worked in Italy and I've
written about the Italian mafia, and I've spent time with
state prosecutors living under police protection and reporters who fear
for their lives. But a reporter hasn't been killed in
Italy for many years, and neither has a judge. Now,
in the Netherlands, one of the richest and most politically
(05:22):
stable countries in the world, organized crimes seem to be
out of control. More and more murders were happening as
the top kingpins tightened their grip on the drugs market
and Paul's reporting on it, it landed a target on
his back. At first, he doesn't tell anyone. He just
keeps trying to figure out what's.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Going on day by day, week by week. The source
it provided new information.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
So Paul's able to keep safe for now, but there's
a limit to how long he can go on like this.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
I didn't talk to the police about it, and.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
He faces a dilemma. If he tells the police, he
knows he won't be able to do his work. Understandably,
criminals aren't so keen on meeting a reporter with a
police escort.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
As a journalist, I needed to stay in the It's
one of my weapons.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
But he chooses to make a bold move. He reaches
out to the criminals directly, the ones who are after him.
He sends them a message through an intermediary and tells
them he knows about the threats.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
That's the same the police will do if they know
about a plan to kill someone, they'll go to the
guys involved and ring the door and tell them we
know what you're up to, don't.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
It's not long before Dutch law enforcement also finds out
about the threats and one of Paul's police contacts calls
them up.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
He told the ball a very bad information, but we
need to meet now. So I told him, let's go
to my house. I'll arrange some coffee and cookies, and
then we'll be having an uncomfortable discussion because you are
not going to tell me what you know, Indie Deil,
and I won't tell you what I know, Indie deal pulling.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
The policemen sit down and have a chat over coffee
and cookies, which is possibly the most dartrous repond you
can imagine to any situation. And it quickly becomes clear
their information matches.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Up, and then all kinds of a lot of people
from the government got involved.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
He tries to keep working, but it becomes clear that
the people who are after him they haven't given up.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
And then one day it was clear that if we
wouldn't leave now, we would not be safe anymore.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Pauland's govern now race to pack their bags because they've
been told they have to move to a safe house, a.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Very luxurious place, much more luxury is than our normal apartment.
And I was transported like the king, quite literally, because
the same organization that secured me secures the king. So
I was in a luxury but it was like a
golden cage because I couldn't get out. I couldn't get
anywhere without a group of people, well trained, well armed
(08:04):
people around me. That's a weird way to live and
a weird way to do your job. But they made
it possible for me to work. There hasn't been one
day I've not been working because of this.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
And it's not just the threats against Paul. Really crazy
things start to happen. Criminals fire a rocket launcher the
offices of a Dutch magazine that's been running stories about
drugs traffickers. No one is hurt, but the message is
very clear journalists and how fair game? And if you
choose to report on us, you're choosing to put your
(08:42):
life in danger. It's sort of like Paul and his
colleagues aren't just crime journalists anymore. They're on the front
line covering a full blown attack on Dutch society and
the men behind it all. They aren't even in the Netherlands.
They're in Dubai, living the high life and far out
of the reach of law enforcement. But police are about
(09:07):
to make a breakthrough that will change everything.
Speaker 5 (09:19):
I really got enthusiastic on that day hearing the panic.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Take a moment to imagine someone who strikes terror into
the hearts of the world's most murderous criminals, and I
can guarantee you're not picturing Martin. Engbert. Martin's slight and
softly spoken, thoughtful. He has a bit of the air
of a tech guy as Silicon Valley blue sky thinker
in a Steve jobstyle black turtleneck. Martin is the Dutch
(09:47):
public prosecutor for high tech crime in twenty seventeen. He
and his team are working on a secret project, one
that will turn him into a sort of nerdy batman.
It all starts when Dutch beliefs notice a new gadget
showing up on the bodies of murdered gang members. They
all seem to be carrying a particular and peculiar type
of cell phone.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
They don't have a camera, the camera has removed. They
don't have a microphone. The microphone is removed.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
These phones are useless for calls and they're only good
for messaging. And the phone service runs through specialized companies
that offer a particular promise to their clients.
Speaker 5 (10:27):
They advertise police cannot break the encryption on the phones.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Back in the days before encrypted messages, the criminals were smart,
they would meet face to face, and if they were stupid,
they speak on the phone.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
Now, I don't want to say famous, but we are
well known for wired tepping. But the organized crime groups
know that, so the organized crime groups in the Netherlands
they don't talk about anything on the phone themselves anymore.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Technology disrupts every business sector, and drug trafficking is no different.
These cryptophones transformed the way people run organized crime groups.
You don't need to be in the same city anymore
to send an order to an underling. You don't even
need to be in the same country. You can now
run a vast and complex drug trafficking empire from Dubai
without ever getting your hands dirty. You can connect with suppliers,
(11:18):
you can manage your finances, and most importantly, you can
order murders and the police have almost no way of
seeing what you're up to. Martin and his colleagues are
determined to figure out a way to crack these phones,
but they're sort of stuck in illegal Catch twenty two.
Martin is certain that the phones are being used by
organized criminals, but he can't prove it without access to
(11:41):
the messages, and to get access he needs proof that
they really are being used for crime. So he comes
up with a solution. Don't go after the criminals, go
after the phone company. Most of the phones are made
by a small Dutch supplier called Enetcom, and most of
their servers are in Canada.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
We convinced the Canadian judge that there would be evidence
on those servers proving that Enucom was supplying telephones to criminals.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
So one morning, after getting permission from a judge, a
team from Martin's office get on a fly from Amsterdam
to Canada.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
I remember a lot of details of the day we
went to Canada. We copied six terrhabytes, which seemed a
lot of data. So everybody was really excited because you
think we have six terabytes of emails, which would be
billions of messages.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
It's a potentially huge breakthrough, a treasure trove of information
and evidence, but it's all encrypted. There are layers and
layers of passwords and digital keys, and even if they
do crack the encryption, Martin has another problem.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
And had gone try to delete all the information of
their clients. After two or three days. So you receive
an email, you read the email, you do nothing with
the email, and then after two or three days it
will self delete.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
The hackers on the high Tech team get to work.
They grind late into the night trying to break the
encryption on the messages. There's a lot of trial and error. First,
the team have to crack the master password, and to
do that they have to try millions of passwords, millions
of combinations. It takes months, and we brute forced the password.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
So we tried a lot of passwords and eventually we
were able to break the password off the key surfer
and by doing that we were able to use the
private keys. And if you have the private key sing
you have to encrypt it messengers yet down it's easy.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Martin and his colleagues have prized open a vault of
evidence about what's really going on inside European organized crime.
They can see how conspiracies unfolded minute by minute through
strings of chats between gangsters. To really set the cat
amongst the pigeons, Martin's team added a little flourish, a
sort of middle finger to the criminals.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
We send out a message to all the users of anetcom.
We told them the police is now in Canada securing
all the information of your foots, and we heard the panic.
So in an airleance. The panics within organized crime groups
started on that day.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
I've talked about the glimpses we sometimes get of organized crime,
and this it was like turning on a floodlight. It
sends shock waves to the criminal underworld, but it's about
to get even worse for them. Martin's team soon figure
out a way to recover the deleted messages, the ones
that ener common Its users believed were gone forever, and
(15:02):
suddenly a once hidden universe of crime, of alliances and
global connections is illuminated.
Speaker 5 (15:10):
A lot more information about assassinations and about the importation
of drugs.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
But for Martin, there's something even more shocking. Reading through
the messages, the police suddenly see how easy it's become
to order murders using these phones. A crime boss can
order a contract killing as easily as they would order
a pizza.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
In an Ellens there were multiple groups that you could
hire to assassinate someone. My work is hyder Chrome, so
for me it was really strange to see that there
wasn't one group or multiple groups that you could hire
to kill someone.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
And buried inside the millions of messages on the enitcom
servers is one brief conversation from November twenty fifteen. It's
a set of simple and chilling instructions sent from one
user to another. The first message reads, got a nice
job for you bro. The response, who needs to go
(16:14):
to sleep? Then it's a tug. He works in the
electricity company and drives a white van. Why he has
to go to sleep? I don't know, and I don't
even want to know.
Speaker 6 (16:39):
Every murder case deserves a solution, and you know people
should be brought to justice in Trinal but a foreign government,
especially the country's so dictatorships, or the killings in another
Western country. You know, this is a thing.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
We met with Elia in episode one. He's the local
councilor and our mayor the Dutch town where Ali Mtummad
was murdered, and thanks to Paul's reporting, Ulasse now knows
that the electrician was in fact a man on the
run from the Iranian regime. He also knows that the
people who pulled the trigger were Dutch criminals, but he
still doesn't know who gave them orders, who hired them,
(17:21):
Ulisa has a strong theory though. He thinks it has
to be the Iranian regime, the same regime that forced
his father to flee Iran decades before, but he can't
prove it. So Ulasee does everything he can to raise
awareness of the murder. He lobbies local politicians, he starts
doing radio and TV interviews about it, including with the
(17:43):
Dutch state broadcaster nosdag dot Ilon.
Speaker 6 (17:51):
So I was like, Okay, thanks for moving in the
right direction. I'm getting attention for this very important murder case.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
You were kind of going out a little bit on
your own saying something which sounds like a crazy story.
You know, as you said, it is crazy. It is
it is, and so was anyone saying you're wrong or
where's the proof?
Speaker 6 (18:13):
You know. The weird thing in politics is the official
response you get. It's like, we won't tell you anything
about an individual case. We don't know, there's no information,
don't bother. I was like, I'm not going to take
that for an answer.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Because for Uler, say, this is about a lot more
than just one murder.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
If this is true, what is the implication for Iranian
people living in the West who fled the country and
are speaking out, what's the implication for them. The key
message from the regime, it's a message to all of Europe,
We're going to find you because you know, let me
emphasize this once more. This guy, they were looking for
him for thirty five years.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
So after all of this, you were going on you know, TV,
you were giving interviews, you were you were pressing the
importance of this case and what you thought, what you
believed based on your evidence, and you're thinking about it,
what you thought really was the case. And then in
twenty nineteen, suddenly boom boom Uleas was shouting about the
(19:20):
Matomid murder to anyone who would listen. He'd lobbied his
local mayor, the police, even national politicians, and no one
gave him answers. It felt like he was banging his
head against a brick wall. And then one day.
Speaker 6 (19:34):
And I was in my office working and then boom,
my telephone like exploded, like boom, this Bush messages and
I was like, finally we're doing something back to the regime,
showing like okay, don't do this.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
The Dutch Foreign Minister has announced that, based on classified
information from the Dutch intelligence services, the government believes that
Iran was responsible for the Matomid murder and another murder
as well.
Speaker 6 (20:02):
I remember his words were like for ninety nine percent,
for sure we know that Irani has did this. It
was of course we because formerly the minister could not
conclude officially it was d Raniers. But it was like
ninety nine percent, we know we expelled them.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
The expulsion of diplomats. It might sound well, a bit
diplomatic slap on the wrist, but in foreign relations this
is a big deal, a rare move, and for Uda
say it's his own country, finally agreeing that he was
right all along, the people behind Mtammid's murder were in Tehran.
Speaker 6 (20:39):
These are important moments, but then this quite rapidly changed
to something something ugly for me.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
When Unasa does another round of news interviews linking Tehran
to the Mtummd murder and to the murder broker known
as Noofel, Novel is not happy, and even though he's
in prison awaiting trial, he finds a way to let
Ulusay know about it. A lawyer working for mister now
ful Fassi that's Novel's full name, files a legal complaint
(21:10):
against Ulas. He says he's abusing his position and making
false allegations about his client's connections to Iran.
Speaker 6 (21:17):
And I remember, you know, I'm sure you can relate
this feeling. Sometimes unfortunately this happens in life. You get
really cold and you feel the energy flowing from your
head to you. It just drains your energy. And I
got really cold, and I was like, okay, I know
who missed the fuss is. It was clear for me
(21:40):
this is pure intimidation. Like you know, fifteen years ago,
people through a rock at your window. This is the
modern form of the intimidation. We know who you are.
Stop talking about this connection.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
RELI say, tells the Dutch security services about the letter.
They decide that his life and his family are in danger.
So Ulas, just like Paul and like his own father
decades before, is now put the police protection. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (22:11):
But then they made one mistake. They didn't study my
character or my family history. So I immediately went out
to publicly and said I will not be intimidated. Go
to Hell. I will never be intimidated.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Ulas isn't shutting up because he still has too many
questions about the murder. He knows that now full Fasci
novel was found in it in a hand safe house
in Dublin, and that Nophel was the one who arranged
for Alia mctomma to be murdered. And now he knows
that the Dutch government believes it was Iran who was
ultimately behind the assassination.
Speaker 6 (22:46):
But someone spoke to mister Fassi. I don't know who.
It's not like someone from Tehran is calling mister Fussy.
That's not how things work.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
So how do things work? The supercartel seems to be
connected to this murder, but what does that connection mean?
What links these two things together? Looking into all of this,
pulling on threads, I came across a case that might
help us begin to understand.
Speaker 7 (23:16):
Somehow we established our credibility. At that point, she already
knew we were high leveled gold claff cours, probably multiaton.
We have connections to the military, which cost have developpened
the door for us.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
That's next time on Hot Money. Hot Money is a
(23:50):
production of The Financial Times and Pushkin Industries. It was
written and reported by me Miles Johnson, and if you've
got any leads or information about this story, you can
email me at new narcost ft dot com. The series
producer is Peggy Sutton. Edith Russello is the associate producer.
Fact checking is by Arthur god engineering by Sarah Bruguerer,
(24:13):
Sound design from Jake Gorsky. Jeremy Walmsley wrote the original music.
Our editor is Sarah Nix, and the executive producers are
Jacob Goldstein and Cheryl Bramley. Special thanks to Laura Clark, Marshall,
waroven Alistair macke, Breen Turner and Arlie Adlington
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