December 5, 2023 • 29 mins
When a Dutch crime reporter makes an unbelievable discovery, a small-town murder case begins to look like an international assassination plot. Enjoy this episode from Hot Money: The New Narcos, a podcast from Pushkin Industries and the Financial Times.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey, it's Jacob.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
I want to tell you about a new season of
a show that Pushkin makes with The Financial Times. The
show is called Hot Money.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
The new season is called.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
The New Narcos, and it's about It's about a lot
of things. It's about the cocaine business in Europe, it's
about international sanctions, and it is about murder. It's a
great show. It's just coming out this week. You can
get it, as they say, wherever you get your podcasts,
and we're going to play you the first episode of
the show right now.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I hope you like it. I'm Miles Johnson and I'm
an investigative journalist with the Financial Times. And the story
I'm going to tell you it's not a love story,
but it starts with a wedding. It's a wedding that
takes place in Dubai in twenty seventeen. It's a hot
summer's day. The Burj al Arab one of the most
(01:11):
expensive hotels in the world. It's a skyscraper shaped like
the sail of a ship, rising up from the glittering
water of the Persian Gulf. Guests can arrive across a
private bridge in the hotel's fleet of rolls, Royce phantoms
or flyin landing on the helipad on the roof. The
wedding party that day has been told to keep things
(01:32):
discreete no photos and no social media. Security is tight.
The groom is a young Irish entrepreneur and some of
his most important business partners have come to celebrate his
big day. But these aren't your average businessmen. Some of
them hang priceless stolen masterpieces on their walls. They've got
(01:53):
multiple passports with multiple identities, and they can order the
assassination of almost anyone anywhere in the world. Because this
isn't just a wedding, this is an international crime summit.
It's a met of what will come to be known
as the Doubai Supercartel, a shadowy criminal network that controls
(02:15):
a multi billion dollar cocaine empire spanning the globe. Over
the years, I've written about a lot of different things,
but more recently you could perhaps describe my beat as
the places where crime and business collide. I've written about
Russian billionaires who control private mercenary armies and the Italian
(02:37):
mafia laundering their cash through the City of London, have
covered Vatican financial scandals, and spy rings that smuggle microchips.
Because crime is a business, and modern organized crime groups
they're increasingly run like multinational companies. They have thousands of employees,
complicated logistical supply chains, and even investment portfolios. It's a
(03:00):
big economic story, but you don't usually read about it
in the business pages because reporting on international crime groups
in the same way we'd report on a blue chip corporation, well,
it's hard. Crime bosses they don't usually have pr teams
you can bring up, and mafias. They don't publish audited
accounts or glossy annual reports. But the money generated by
(03:22):
organized crime is vast, and most of the time it's invisible.
It's like this ocean of shadow cash. We know it's there,
but we can't ever really see it. It's trillions of
dollars and it fuels things like weapons, trafficking and war.
It can even topple governments. And the men celebrating in
(03:42):
that wedding in Dubai. They've come up with a new
model of organized crime, and it's become so successful that
by twenty seventeen, police believe that they control a third
of Europe's cocaine market worth billions of dollars a year.
When I first came across to do By Supercartel, it
seems like something from a film, something almost ridiculous, like
(04:04):
Specter from James Bond. I needed to find out more,
so I started talking to people. I met with sources
in law enforcement, undercover agents, spies. I got hold of
legal documents and investigative dossiers, and then I realized, this
isn't just a story about crime. This is a story
about a secret economic war. It's a story about who
(04:27):
gets to control how money moves around the world, and
where the Western governments can keep hold of that power
as the rules based international order breaks apart. Because I
discovered that the Dubai Supercartel, they're not just hiding from governments,
they're working alongside them. But my first clue to understanding
(04:47):
how this group of criminals became so rich and so
powerful it took me somewhere that's a million miles away
from the bling of a Dubai wedding, because one day
I was speaking to a source and they told me
something I just really wasn't expecting. They said, if you
really want to understand how all of this works, you
(05:07):
have to go and look at a murder in a
small town in the Netherlands. This is Hot Money Season
two the New Narcos, episode one, Murder Brokers.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
One of the good things about being a crime reporter
is that you talk to everyone who wants to talk
to you, very different people, and I like to do that.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
This is Paul Paul Volks. He's a reporter in Amsterdam
and for more than twenty years he's been working the
local crime beat for Het Parole, a daily city newspaper.
Paul wears black t shirts and a leather jacket and
has a gold hoop in one ear. He's old school.
He's not posting hot takes on social media. When I
(06:21):
first met Paul, he didn't take long before he showed
me his bike. He rides it everywhere down cobblestone streets
and squares and along beautiful canals, going to coffee shops
and bars to meet his sources. But if that sounds
a bit quaint, there's a fast, seedy aside to Amsterdam
that keeps a crime reporter like Paul pretty busy. Because
Amsterdam is famous for his beauty, but it's also well
(06:43):
known for its red light district. It's relaxed drug laws
and a vibrant criminal underworld, and that means Paul always
has plenty to write about. Like all good crime reporters,
Paul works his beat. He speaks to everyone. He talks
to police officers, lawyers, the local prosecutor's office. But Paul
(07:04):
is also always cultivating his underworld sources.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
I tried to build my network step by step because,
as you might know, as a grime juellist, your colleague
cannot give you his or her network. That's not possible.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
And he learns early on the criminals well, they care
about journalistic standards too. A notorious underworld figure reaches out
to Paul about a mistake he thought he'd made in
one of his articles because he wanted to set the
record straight.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
But the first time, of course, I thought where to meet,
how to meet, how to keep it safe. I learned
quite fast that some public space as a coffee bar
is the best place to sit. Or atn airport, where
everybody knows there are lots of cameras, there's a lot
of security. Nothing will happen there. You'll know for sure
(07:55):
that all eyes will be focused on you as a criminal.
And I we don't fit in, so if something weird
would happen, everybody would be a witness and they know
it as well.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Back in twenty fifteen, Paul is busy covering crime in Amsterdam. Muggings,
rival gangsters trying to kill each other, batches of dodgy
drugs that put people's lives in danger. These seem like
the sort of things you'd imagine happen in any big city.
Then one morning in December, he gets a call. It's
from the police department.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
A man in his fifties was shot with one bullet
in the head and standing next to his fan. Going
to work from Amsterdam, I went to Almira, which is
twenty minute rides.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Is it somewhere you expect there to be shootings, murders?
You know what sort of areas there's There are lots
of crime there. What's it like?
Speaker 5 (08:47):
The area and they live in in Almra is just
a very normal neighborhood with normal working class people. Not
much trouble over there.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
When Paul arrives, there's already red and white tape blocking
the area and police have put up a tent to
cover the body. He gets out of his notebook and
starts to gather the facts. The victim is called alimtam
He's fifty six years old and he's an engineer at
the State Electric Company. He's got a wife, a son.
He's a family man. But there isn't much else to
(09:18):
go on. The electrician doesn't seem to have any connection
to crime.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
All the sources I asked, nobody knew who was this alimotamet.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
To Paul, it just seems to be a random shooting.
So he heads back to his office and files a
short story. A few weeks later, his editor asked him
to write a roundup of the most notable crime stories
of the last year, and the murder in our mayor
it doesn't make the cut. Paul goes back to riding
around on his bike and meeting his sources. But in
(09:49):
the months after, Paul finds that he can't get the
Matamid case out of his head. That thing when you
write a story and you have a nagging voice in
your head, maybe there's something that I'm missing. Paul's covered
a lot of murders, but this one it seems weird.
He can't shake the feeling that something does doesn't quite
(10:09):
add up. The first thing is the style of the killing.
It wasn't a sloppy job or a wild act of rage.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
The thing was that one shut through the heads. It's
not the familiar way of assassinating people. In other assassinations,
automatic rifles are used, many bullets are shut.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And then there was the motive. One theory is that
Mtammed was part of some family feud or had argued
with a friend. Most of the murders, Paul writes about
that kind of thing, or criminals killing each other over
money or tough settling scores. But that didn't really fit
with the matomic case. So there were other theories.
Speaker 5 (10:52):
Oh, maybe electricians, So maybe he was in hemp business.
The hemp people they need illegal electricity.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Hemp is another name for weed, and some weed grows
in the Netherlands steel electricity to power their operations. Matamed
was an electrician. Maybe that was his connection to crime.
Speaker 5 (11:10):
Maybe he was a wrong person. That was an idea.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
This seemed like the most plausible explanation, a terrible case
of mistaken identity. Paul keeps thinking about it as he
drops into cafes to meet informants about other stories. He
mentions Ali Muhammad's name.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
Criminals didn't know him policemen didn't know him. I tried
to do some research, but I didn't get a clue.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
To be honest, as a reporter, you can have dozens
of meetings that lead to nothing, but once in a while,
you get lucky. And that's what happens to Paul. Out
of nowhere, he gets a tip.
Speaker 5 (11:51):
I was talking to some source I knew very well,
and this source told me just at the second cup
of coffee and he said, well, you remember this story
of Ali Modamett. You're working on that still, Yes, you
should go on and go on and dig and dick,
because there's a very weird, big story behind this murder.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Paul wasn't the only person thinking about what happened in
al Mayor that day.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
I remember this, this shooting December fifteenth. Your really nice
neighbor got guilt. Nobody knows why.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
At the time, Ula Eliam was involved with the local
city council.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
So yeah, I remember it was like this mystery for
people like, well, what happened?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Uler say, he's this intense guy who locks you into
his gaze, and he's a sharp dresser. When we meet,
he's wearing this charcoal suit and a black unbuttoned shirt
down to his chest. When Alimtamada murdered, Ulis is just
getting into local politics. He's a spokesperson for safety and
public order in our mayor where Ali Mttammad was killed.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
What was strange in this case there was nothing and
this was fueled by the National Police.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
The police appealed on national television for any information that
the public could give them.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
You have any tips, do you have any suggestions. We
put out this reward.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
But no one came forward. A year goes by, still nothing.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
I thought, this is getting this is getting a bit weird.
So we don't have any clues to find the shooters.
There's no information about the circumstances of the of the shooting.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Ulissa is particularly interested in this case because Alimtomed, it
turns out, was born in Iran and Ulersay's own family
also moved to the Netherlands from Iran around the same
time that Alimtammid did.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
I'm named after Odysseus, you know, the Greek king, because
my father he was reading Odysseus and my father was like, okay,
I lost my home. I don't know where my home
will be, but I'm sure this baby will find a
new home.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Ulissa's father was a critic of the hardline theocracy imposed
by the new regime in Iran after the revolution. He
knew his life might be in danger if he stayed.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
He had to go into hiding very fast. He never
had the chance to say goodbye to his mother, for example,
because it was too dangerous.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
First his father moved to Afghanistan, where Ulisse was born,
and then they moved to the Netherlands, eventually settling in
Al Mayor. Ulysse grew up in the same sleepy suburb
where Ali Mtamad lived and died.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I've been living there for twenty years now. And the
funny thing is, or the special thing, it also relates
to my history, you know, like it's a new city.
The province. One of the nicknames is like new Land
because it's built from water. Yeah, and my family came
to a new land. It started a new life. So yeah,
it all connects really nicely.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Ulisses father became a law professor and he kept speaking
out against the Iranian regime from his new home. But
there was a cost, and this became a reality when
the family moved to Our Mayor. His father started getting
serious threats at.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
That time, my father received a massive security protection. I
was young. You're still focused on things you do when
you're at that age, you know, playing football, trying to
enjoy life. But yeah, when you see your dad being
transported with multiple bodyguards, yeah, of course your life changes.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
So decades later, when an Iranian man is shot in
his hometown, it gets ulysses attention. Even more so when
police finally share what they've pieced together from CCTV footage,
it shows that the idea that you Assen's made a
mistake looks less and less plausible. This was a meticulously
planned operation. The police report is a difficult read. It's
(16:21):
a chilling account of a cold, premeditated murder planned over weeks,
and it reveals that the killers made two failed attempts
in the days before Alie Mtummed was shot. On December eleventh,
twenty fifteen, at around quarter past six in the morning,
a blue BMW drives slowly down the dark suburban street.
(16:45):
The driver stops outside one of the houses and turns
the car's headlights off. Inside, Alie Mtammed is getting started
with his day. Usually he leaves his house a quarter
to seven, but today he has a job nearby, so
he leaves later at eight thirty am. At about eight am,
(17:06):
the driver of the BMW turns the car back and
leaves the street. A few days later, Monday, December fourteenth,
the BMW arrives again at around quarter past six. It's
a regular work day, and Mohammed walks out of his
front door a little before seven. A neighbors also leaving
their house at the same time, and the driver of
(17:28):
the BMW spots him and Mhammed and drives off. Tuesday,
December fifteenth, the BMW appears at six o'clock. Matammid's wife
and teenage son are asleep upstairs as he steps out
of his house and shuts the front door. That is
dark outside. No neighbors around this morning. As the electrician
(17:53):
walks towards his van, a man walks up behind him
and shoots him in the head. Mahammed slumps to the
ground and the shooter gets back in his BMW and
the car speeds off.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
They hit him directly left with the car, I think,
if I remember correctly, BMW five. They went to the
specific spot in another part of olmyr burned a car
and they leave.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
The BMW was found burned out a few miles away,
and witnesses saw two men walking off.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
There's all the signs of professionals in the criminal circuit,
so that made it even more strange, like, okay, this
is really professional, and still we don't have any idea
why who.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
This is the point that I started to see the
first liquor, to realize what a murder in a small
Dutch town could have to do with the supercartel and
what that could mean. Because Paul has kept on digging
and he's made an unbelievable discovery.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
And I remember reading it and I think it was
on a sunny Monday morning, and I immediately I knew.
I felt in all my body, I know, wow, this
is crazy.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
In twenty eighteen, Paul breaks a big story and it's
not about the murderers, but it's about the victim.
Speaker 5 (19:20):
I found out that Ali Motamet was not Ali Motamet
the electrician. He was an electrician, yes, but he lived
in Holland with a false eye identity.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Ali Matamed was, in reality and assumed identity the electrician
from our mayor had been living a secret life, one
so secret that even some members of his own family
didn't know who he really was.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
Ali Motamet was Mohammed Reza colahis so many and when
he was twenty three years old, he plays the bomb
which blew up seventy four people of the Islamic Republican
Party in Iran.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
This happened in my city, quite close to where I live,
and probably the regime, you know, the whole reason I'm
in Holland. They were able to find someone who they
were looking for for like at that time, like thirty
(20:23):
five years, who was like one of their prime targets
because they wanted to revenge My dad always wanted me.
They're dangerous, you know, they found him. These are not
bedtime stories. This is getting real.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Sometimes you get a glimpse of something, the edge of
what seems like it might be a much bigger story,
and it leads you into a whole new place, a
place where you're not quite sure what's going on, and
it's hard to know even where to start. That's where
Paul finds himself after he learns about Ali mctummitt's past.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
I had no sources at all in Iran. I had
no sources at all in geopolitical world.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
This clearly isn't a local murder case in a small
town anymore. Paul has been pulled into what looks like
a targeted assassination plot in the heart of Europe, but
he doesn't have any proof, just a strong theory. Ulusa
is looking for answers too. He posts online about the
case and wonders does anyone know more about Matamad or
(21:50):
how the Iranian regime might have found him? And Ulusa's
posts they catch Paul's attention.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Paul called me, I saw your questions. Let's let's talk.
Speaker 5 (22:02):
After I broke the story, Ulus Elian and I met
in our mare, had coffee and we tried to make
plans to find the mystic pieces of the puzzle. How
can we get more insight in the backgrounds of this.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Aul the man his neighbors knew as Alimtomid moved to
the Netherlands in nineteen eighty five, he wouldn't have particularly
stood out. It was a time when many Iranians were
fleeing Iran, just like Ulysses father. But Alimtomid wasn't just fleeing,
He was hiding. He was accused of carrying out the
biggest terrorist attack in modern Iranian history. This is a
(22:39):
big deal this bombing in nineteen eighty one. It killed
a senior Ayatollah, four cabinet ministers, and reportedly dozens of
other top Iranian officials. Matamd fled Iran after the bombing,
but was found guilty in absentia and sentenced to death.
We don't know much about his years in the Netherlands,
but we do know that he adopted a new identity
(23:01):
and built a new life. He married a woman who
was originally from Afghanistan. They had a son, and Matamad
got a job at the local electric company. For years,
he led a simple suburban life. He went to work
at the same time most days. His neighbors thought of
him as punctual, trustworthy. No one really knew much more
(23:21):
about him, but secretly, Mahammed knew that the Iranian regime
was still looking for him, so he was incredibly careful. Reportedly,
he didn't even tell his wife his true identity until
a few years before his death, and his son had
no idea about Matummed's past. I keep thinking about the
(23:42):
loneliness and the isolation of someone who's bearing this huge
secret from the people in their life who they're closest to.
Someone who spent almost his entire adulthood trying to stay
one step ahead of people he knew were trying to
kill him. Mahammed was careful to avoid his photograph appearing
on social media, but not long before his murder he
seemed to have slipped up. A single photograph of him
(24:05):
went up on Facebook celebrating his teenage son's high school graduation,
and months later a BMW pulled up outside his house
early in the morning. So this is a story I've
been told to look at the murder of a man
living a secret life, a man on the run from
(24:25):
a powerful regime. At this point, I can't see the
connection between this murder and the Dubai supercartel. But then
a few months later, something happens that takes us one
step closer to understanding how all of this works. In
April twenty sixteen, two Irish detectives arrive at a residential
(24:46):
address not far from Dublin City Center. They have a
search warren because they've heard that an apartment in this
building is being used as a safehouse by Ireland's most
powerful and dangerous criminal organization. But inside there are no irishmen. Instead,
the officers find a short man with a large belly
who speaks only broken English. It's clear the man is rich.
(25:09):
He's wearing bright blue designer sneakers covered in studs. When
the detectives searched the flat, they find thirteen thousand euros
in cash and two Rolex watches. What's less clear is
his identity. He has two different IDs, one Dutch one Belgian,
each with a different name.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
I remember the morning on which he was arrested, and
I can tell you nobody knew who he was.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Shamus Boland is Detective Chief Superintendent in the Irish Police Force.
His officers raided the apartment that day.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
He was arrested for a possession of false documents and
there was no certainty aboute his identity at all.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
The police take him to the station and send his
fingerprints and photo off to law enforcement agencies around the world.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
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 Ustin Day identified him from
the photographs and fingerprints immediately, and senior Dutch police officers
bordered a plane immediately and flew to Dublin.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
The Dutch police know who the man is, so does
Paul Vooks.
Speaker 5 (26:24):
He was very well known and notorious in the Amsterdam
crime scene.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
His name is now for Fassy and Paul calls him
by his nickname Noel. He's wanted for a string of
drug related murders.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
He was seen as a guy would do anything for money,
who would be able to do very serious crimes without
blinking his eyes.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Paul doesn't know it yet and ordered the police. But
the man who sent two assassins to murder, Alimtamid, it
was no for not as a murder broker, he can
arrange the killing of anyone anywhere with just a couple
of messages sent from his phone. And the people hiding
the murder broker in their Dublin safe house, Shamus knows
(27:10):
exactly who they are.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
That organized crime group has been the primary group for
the last twenty twenty five years that built the networks
supplying drugs and firearms of this jurisdiction without a dot.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
That organized crime group, the people who are hiding the
murder broker in their safehouse, They're at the heart of
the supercartel. They're the men who gathered that day for
the wedding in the luxury hotel in Dubai. But if
Ulasa is right, this isn't just a murder, This is
a state sponsored assassination and it raises a big question.
Speaker 5 (27:47):
What is the link between no Fall, the Broker and Irang.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Why would a hit man working with top cocaine traffickers
murder someone apparently on behalf of a government And if
that's what happened, what does that tell us about the
transformation of international organized crime? To find out, We're going
to Ireland to talk to someone who's been following the
(28:15):
family at the heart of the supercartel. From the very start, you.
Speaker 6 (28:20):
Don't know if somebody behind that door has a gun.
The adrenaline is flowing, you know, your heart is racing.
Anything could go wrong.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Hot Money is a 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 gom Jason Gambrell
(29:11):
and Amanda k Wong are the mixing engineers. Sound designed
from Jake Gorsky. Jeremy Warmsley wrote the original music. Our
editor is Sarah Nix, and the executive producers are Jacob
Goldstein and Cheryl Brumley. Special thanks to Rilla Klaff, Marshall Waroven,
Laura Clark, Alistair, Mackie Green Turner, Jude Webber, and rich
(29:31):
Ward
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey, it's Jacob.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
I want to tell you about a new season of
a show that Pushkin makes with The Financial Times. The
show is called Hot Money.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
The new season is called.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
The New Narcos, and it's about It's about a lot
of things. It's about the cocaine business in Europe, it's
about international sanctions, and it is about murder. It's a
great show. It's just coming out this week. You can
get it, as they say, wherever you get your podcasts,
and we're going to play you the first episode of
the show right now.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I hope you like it. I'm Miles Johnson and I'm
an investigative journalist with the Financial Times. And the story
I'm going to tell you it's not a love story,
but it starts with a wedding. It's a wedding that
takes place in Dubai in twenty seventeen. It's a hot
summer's day. The Burj al Arab one of the most
(01:11):
expensive hotels in the world. It's a skyscraper shaped like
the sail of a ship, rising up from the glittering
water of the Persian Gulf. Guests can arrive across a
private bridge in the hotel's fleet of rolls, Royce phantoms
or flyin landing on the helipad on the roof. The
wedding party that day has been told to keep things
(01:32):
discreete no photos and no social media. Security is tight.
The groom is a young Irish entrepreneur and some of
his most important business partners have come to celebrate his
big day. But these aren't your average businessmen. Some of
them hang priceless stolen masterpieces on their walls. They've got
(01:53):
multiple passports with multiple identities, and they can order the
assassination of almost anyone anywhere in the world. Because this
isn't just a wedding, this is an international crime summit.
It's a met of what will come to be known
as the Doubai Supercartel, a shadowy criminal network that controls
(02:15):
a multi billion dollar cocaine empire spanning the globe. Over
the years, I've written about a lot of different things,
but more recently you could perhaps describe my beat as
the places where crime and business collide. I've written about
Russian billionaires who control private mercenary armies and the Italian
(02:37):
mafia laundering their cash through the City of London, have
covered Vatican financial scandals, and spy rings that smuggle microchips.
Because crime is a business, and modern organized crime groups
they're increasingly run like multinational companies. They have thousands of employees,
complicated logistical supply chains, and even investment portfolios. It's a
(03:00):
big economic story, but you don't usually read about it
in the business pages because reporting on international crime groups
in the same way we'd report on a blue chip corporation, well,
it's hard. Crime bosses they don't usually have pr teams
you can bring up, and mafias. They don't publish audited
accounts or glossy annual reports. But the money generated by
(03:22):
organized crime is vast, and most of the time it's invisible.
It's like this ocean of shadow cash. We know it's there,
but we can't ever really see it. It's trillions of
dollars and it fuels things like weapons, trafficking and war.
It can even topple governments. And the men celebrating in
(03:42):
that wedding in Dubai. They've come up with a new
model of organized crime, and it's become so successful that
by twenty seventeen, police believe that they control a third
of Europe's cocaine market worth billions of dollars a year.
When I first came across to do By Supercartel, it
seems like something from a film, something almost ridiculous, like
(04:04):
Specter from James Bond. I needed to find out more,
so I started talking to people. I met with sources
in law enforcement, undercover agents, spies. I got hold of
legal documents and investigative dossiers, and then I realized, this
isn't just a story about crime. This is a story
about a secret economic war. It's a story about who
(04:27):
gets to control how money moves around the world, and
where the Western governments can keep hold of that power
as the rules based international order breaks apart. Because I
discovered that the Dubai Supercartel, they're not just hiding from governments,
they're working alongside them. But my first clue to understanding
(04:47):
how this group of criminals became so rich and so
powerful it took me somewhere that's a million miles away
from the bling of a Dubai wedding, because one day
I was speaking to a source and they told me
something I just really wasn't expecting. They said, if you
really want to understand how all of this works, you
(05:07):
have to go and look at a murder in a
small town in the Netherlands. This is Hot Money Season
two the New Narcos, episode one, Murder Brokers.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
One of the good things about being a crime reporter
is that you talk to everyone who wants to talk
to you, very different people, and I like to do that.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
This is Paul Paul Volks. He's a reporter in Amsterdam
and for more than twenty years he's been working the
local crime beat for Het Parole, a daily city newspaper.
Paul wears black t shirts and a leather jacket and
has a gold hoop in one ear. He's old school.
He's not posting hot takes on social media. When I
(06:21):
first met Paul, he didn't take long before he showed
me his bike. He rides it everywhere down cobblestone streets
and squares and along beautiful canals, going to coffee shops
and bars to meet his sources. But if that sounds
a bit quaint, there's a fast, seedy aside to Amsterdam
that keeps a crime reporter like Paul pretty busy. Because
Amsterdam is famous for his beauty, but it's also well
(06:43):
known for its red light district. It's relaxed drug laws
and a vibrant criminal underworld, and that means Paul always
has plenty to write about. Like all good crime reporters,
Paul works his beat. He speaks to everyone. He talks
to police officers, lawyers, the local prosecutor's office. But Paul
(07:04):
is also always cultivating his underworld sources.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
I tried to build my network step by step because,
as you might know, as a grime juellist, your colleague
cannot give you his or her network. That's not possible.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
And he learns early on the criminals well, they care
about journalistic standards too. A notorious underworld figure reaches out
to Paul about a mistake he thought he'd made in
one of his articles because he wanted to set the
record straight.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
But the first time, of course, I thought where to meet,
how to meet, how to keep it safe. I learned
quite fast that some public space as a coffee bar
is the best place to sit. Or atn airport, where
everybody knows there are lots of cameras, there's a lot
of security. Nothing will happen there. You'll know for sure
(07:55):
that all eyes will be focused on you as a criminal.
And I we don't fit in, so if something weird
would happen, everybody would be a witness and they know
it as well.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Back in twenty fifteen, Paul is busy covering crime in Amsterdam. Muggings,
rival gangsters trying to kill each other, batches of dodgy
drugs that put people's lives in danger. These seem like
the sort of things you'd imagine happen in any big city.
Then one morning in December, he gets a call. It's
from the police department.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
A man in his fifties was shot with one bullet
in the head and standing next to his fan. Going
to work from Amsterdam, I went to Almira, which is
twenty minute rides.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Is it somewhere you expect there to be shootings, murders?
You know what sort of areas there's There are lots
of crime there. What's it like?
Speaker 5 (08:47):
The area and they live in in Almra is just
a very normal neighborhood with normal working class people. Not
much trouble over there.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
When Paul arrives, there's already red and white tape blocking
the area and police have put up a tent to
cover the body. He gets out of his notebook and
starts to gather the facts. The victim is called alimtam
He's fifty six years old and he's an engineer at
the State Electric Company. He's got a wife, a son.
He's a family man. But there isn't much else to
(09:18):
go on. The electrician doesn't seem to have any connection
to crime.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
All the sources I asked, nobody knew who was this alimotamet.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
To Paul, it just seems to be a random shooting.
So he heads back to his office and files a
short story. A few weeks later, his editor asked him
to write a roundup of the most notable crime stories
of the last year, and the murder in our mayor
it doesn't make the cut. Paul goes back to riding
around on his bike and meeting his sources. But in
(09:49):
the months after, Paul finds that he can't get the
Matamid case out of his head. That thing when you
write a story and you have a nagging voice in
your head, maybe there's something that I'm missing. Paul's covered
a lot of murders, but this one it seems weird.
He can't shake the feeling that something does doesn't quite
(10:09):
add up. The first thing is the style of the killing.
It wasn't a sloppy job or a wild act of rage.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
The thing was that one shut through the heads. It's
not the familiar way of assassinating people. In other assassinations,
automatic rifles are used, many bullets are shut.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And then there was the motive. One theory is that
Mtammed was part of some family feud or had argued
with a friend. Most of the murders, Paul writes about
that kind of thing, or criminals killing each other over
money or tough settling scores. But that didn't really fit
with the matomic case. So there were other theories.
Speaker 5 (10:52):
Oh, maybe electricians, So maybe he was in hemp business.
The hemp people they need illegal electricity.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Hemp is another name for weed, and some weed grows
in the Netherlands steel electricity to power their operations. Matamed
was an electrician. Maybe that was his connection to crime.
Speaker 5 (11:10):
Maybe he was a wrong person. That was an idea.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
This seemed like the most plausible explanation, a terrible case
of mistaken identity. Paul keeps thinking about it as he
drops into cafes to meet informants about other stories. He
mentions Ali Muhammad's name.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
Criminals didn't know him policemen didn't know him. I tried
to do some research, but I didn't get a clue.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
To be honest, as a reporter, you can have dozens
of meetings that lead to nothing, but once in a while,
you get lucky. And that's what happens to Paul. Out
of nowhere, he gets a tip.
Speaker 5 (11:51):
I was talking to some source I knew very well,
and this source told me just at the second cup
of coffee and he said, well, you remember this story
of Ali Modamett. You're working on that still, Yes, you
should go on and go on and dig and dick,
because there's a very weird, big story behind this murder.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Paul wasn't the only person thinking about what happened in
al Mayor that day.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
I remember this, this shooting December fifteenth. Your really nice
neighbor got guilt. Nobody knows why.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
At the time, Ula Eliam was involved with the local
city council.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
So yeah, I remember it was like this mystery for
people like, well, what happened?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Uler say, he's this intense guy who locks you into
his gaze, and he's a sharp dresser. When we meet,
he's wearing this charcoal suit and a black unbuttoned shirt
down to his chest. When Alimtamada murdered, Ulis is just
getting into local politics. He's a spokesperson for safety and
public order in our mayor where Ali Mttammad was killed.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
What was strange in this case there was nothing and
this was fueled by the National Police.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
The police appealed on national television for any information that
the public could give them.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
You have any tips, do you have any suggestions. We
put out this reward.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
But no one came forward. A year goes by, still nothing.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
I thought, this is getting this is getting a bit weird.
So we don't have any clues to find the shooters.
There's no information about the circumstances of the of the shooting.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Ulissa is particularly interested in this case because Alimtomed, it
turns out, was born in Iran and Ulersay's own family
also moved to the Netherlands from Iran around the same
time that Alimtammid did.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
I'm named after Odysseus, you know, the Greek king, because
my father he was reading Odysseus and my father was like, okay,
I lost my home. I don't know where my home
will be, but I'm sure this baby will find a
new home.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Ulissa's father was a critic of the hardline theocracy imposed
by the new regime in Iran after the revolution. He
knew his life might be in danger if he stayed.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
He had to go into hiding very fast. He never
had the chance to say goodbye to his mother, for example,
because it was too dangerous.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
First his father moved to Afghanistan, where Ulisse was born,
and then they moved to the Netherlands, eventually settling in
Al Mayor. Ulysse grew up in the same sleepy suburb
where Ali Mtamad lived and died.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I've been living there for twenty years now. And the
funny thing is, or the special thing, it also relates
to my history, you know, like it's a new city.
The province. One of the nicknames is like new Land
because it's built from water. Yeah, and my family came
to a new land. It started a new life. So yeah,
it all connects really nicely.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Ulisses father became a law professor and he kept speaking
out against the Iranian regime from his new home. But
there was a cost, and this became a reality when
the family moved to Our Mayor. His father started getting
serious threats at.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
That time, my father received a massive security protection. I
was young. You're still focused on things you do when
you're at that age, you know, playing football, trying to
enjoy life. But yeah, when you see your dad being
transported with multiple bodyguards, yeah, of course your life changes.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
So decades later, when an Iranian man is shot in
his hometown, it gets ulysses attention. Even more so when
police finally share what they've pieced together from CCTV footage,
it shows that the idea that you Assen's made a
mistake looks less and less plausible. This was a meticulously
planned operation. The police report is a difficult read. It's
(16:21):
a chilling account of a cold, premeditated murder planned over weeks,
and it reveals that the killers made two failed attempts
in the days before Alie Mtummed was shot. On December eleventh,
twenty fifteen, at around quarter past six in the morning,
a blue BMW drives slowly down the dark suburban street.
(16:45):
The driver stops outside one of the houses and turns
the car's headlights off. Inside, Alie Mtammed is getting started
with his day. Usually he leaves his house a quarter
to seven, but today he has a job nearby, so
he leaves later at eight thirty am. At about eight am,
(17:06):
the driver of the BMW turns the car back and
leaves the street. A few days later, Monday, December fourteenth,
the BMW arrives again at around quarter past six. It's
a regular work day, and Mohammed walks out of his
front door a little before seven. A neighbors also leaving
their house at the same time, and the driver of
(17:28):
the BMW spots him and Mhammed and drives off. Tuesday,
December fifteenth, the BMW appears at six o'clock. Matammid's wife
and teenage son are asleep upstairs as he steps out
of his house and shuts the front door. That is
dark outside. No neighbors around this morning. As the electrician
(17:53):
walks towards his van, a man walks up behind him
and shoots him in the head. Mahammed slumps to the
ground and the shooter gets back in his BMW and
the car speeds off.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
They hit him directly left with the car, I think,
if I remember correctly, BMW five. They went to the
specific spot in another part of olmyr burned a car
and they leave.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
The BMW was found burned out a few miles away,
and witnesses saw two men walking off.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
There's all the signs of professionals in the criminal circuit,
so that made it even more strange, like, okay, this
is really professional, and still we don't have any idea
why who.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
This is the point that I started to see the
first liquor, to realize what a murder in a small
Dutch town could have to do with the supercartel and
what that could mean. Because Paul has kept on digging
and he's made an unbelievable discovery.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
And I remember reading it and I think it was
on a sunny Monday morning, and I immediately I knew.
I felt in all my body, I know, wow, this
is crazy.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
In twenty eighteen, Paul breaks a big story and it's
not about the murderers, but it's about the victim.
Speaker 5 (19:20):
I found out that Ali Motamet was not Ali Motamet
the electrician. He was an electrician, yes, but he lived
in Holland with a false eye identity.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Ali Matamed was, in reality and assumed identity the electrician
from our mayor had been living a secret life, one
so secret that even some members of his own family
didn't know who he really was.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
Ali Motamet was Mohammed Reza colahis so many and when
he was twenty three years old, he plays the bomb
which blew up seventy four people of the Islamic Republican
Party in Iran.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
This happened in my city, quite close to where I live,
and probably the regime, you know, the whole reason I'm
in Holland. They were able to find someone who they
were looking for for like at that time, like thirty
(20:23):
five years, who was like one of their prime targets
because they wanted to revenge My dad always wanted me.
They're dangerous, you know, they found him. These are not
bedtime stories. This is getting real.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Sometimes you get a glimpse of something, the edge of
what seems like it might be a much bigger story,
and it leads you into a whole new place, a
place where you're not quite sure what's going on, and
it's hard to know even where to start. That's where
Paul finds himself after he learns about Ali mctummitt's past.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
I had no sources at all in Iran. I had
no sources at all in geopolitical world.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
This clearly isn't a local murder case in a small
town anymore. Paul has been pulled into what looks like
a targeted assassination plot in the heart of Europe, but
he doesn't have any proof, just a strong theory. Ulusa
is looking for answers too. He posts online about the
case and wonders does anyone know more about Matamad or
(21:50):
how the Iranian regime might have found him? And Ulusa's
posts they catch Paul's attention.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Paul called me, I saw your questions. Let's let's talk.
Speaker 5 (22:02):
After I broke the story, Ulus Elian and I met
in our mare, had coffee and we tried to make
plans to find the mystic pieces of the puzzle. How
can we get more insight in the backgrounds of this.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Aul the man his neighbors knew as Alimtomid moved to
the Netherlands in nineteen eighty five, he wouldn't have particularly
stood out. It was a time when many Iranians were
fleeing Iran, just like Ulysses father. But Alimtomid wasn't just fleeing,
He was hiding. He was accused of carrying out the
biggest terrorist attack in modern Iranian history. This is a
(22:39):
big deal this bombing in nineteen eighty one. It killed
a senior Ayatollah, four cabinet ministers, and reportedly dozens of
other top Iranian officials. Matamd fled Iran after the bombing,
but was found guilty in absentia and sentenced to death.
We don't know much about his years in the Netherlands,
but we do know that he adopted a new identity
(23:01):
and built a new life. He married a woman who
was originally from Afghanistan. They had a son, and Matamad
got a job at the local electric company. For years,
he led a simple suburban life. He went to work
at the same time most days. His neighbors thought of
him as punctual, trustworthy. No one really knew much more
(23:21):
about him, but secretly, Mahammed knew that the Iranian regime
was still looking for him, so he was incredibly careful. Reportedly,
he didn't even tell his wife his true identity until
a few years before his death, and his son had
no idea about Matummed's past. I keep thinking about the
(23:42):
loneliness and the isolation of someone who's bearing this huge
secret from the people in their life who they're closest to.
Someone who spent almost his entire adulthood trying to stay
one step ahead of people he knew were trying to
kill him. Mahammed was careful to avoid his photograph appearing
on social media, but not long before his murder he
seemed to have slipped up. A single photograph of him
(24:05):
went up on Facebook celebrating his teenage son's high school graduation,
and months later a BMW pulled up outside his house
early in the morning. So this is a story I've
been told to look at the murder of a man
living a secret life, a man on the run from
(24:25):
a powerful regime. At this point, I can't see the
connection between this murder and the Dubai supercartel. But then
a few months later, something happens that takes us one
step closer to understanding how all of this works. In
April twenty sixteen, two Irish detectives arrive at a residential
(24:46):
address not far from Dublin City Center. They have a
search warren because they've heard that an apartment in this
building is being used as a safehouse by Ireland's most
powerful and dangerous criminal organization. But inside there are no irishmen. Instead,
the officers find a short man with a large belly
who speaks only broken English. It's clear the man is rich.
(25:09):
He's wearing bright blue designer sneakers covered in studs. When
the detectives searched the flat, they find thirteen thousand euros
in cash and two Rolex watches. What's less clear is
his identity. He has two different IDs, one Dutch one Belgian,
each with a different name.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
I remember the morning on which he was arrested, and
I can tell you nobody knew who he was.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Shamus Boland is Detective Chief Superintendent in the Irish Police Force.
His officers raided the apartment that day.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
He was arrested for a possession of false documents and
there was no certainty aboute his identity at all.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
The police take him to the station and send his
fingerprints and photo off to law enforcement agencies around the world.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
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 Ustin Day identified him from
the photographs and fingerprints immediately, and senior Dutch police officers
bordered a plane immediately and flew to Dublin.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
The Dutch police know who the man is, so does
Paul Vooks.
Speaker 5 (26:24):
He was very well known and notorious in the Amsterdam
crime scene.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
His name is now for Fassy and Paul calls him
by his nickname Noel. He's wanted for a string of
drug related murders.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
He was seen as a guy would do anything for money,
who would be able to do very serious crimes without
blinking his eyes.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Paul doesn't know it yet and ordered the police. But
the man who sent two assassins to murder, Alimtamid, it
was no for not as a murder broker, he can
arrange the killing of anyone anywhere with just a couple
of messages sent from his phone. And the people hiding
the murder broker in their Dublin safe house, Shamus knows
(27:10):
exactly who they are.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
That organized crime group has been the primary group for
the last twenty twenty five years that built the networks
supplying drugs and firearms of this jurisdiction without a dot.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
That organized crime group, the people who are hiding the
murder broker in their safehouse, They're at the heart of
the supercartel. They're the men who gathered that day for
the wedding in the luxury hotel in Dubai. But if
Ulasa is right, this isn't just a murder, This is
a state sponsored assassination and it raises a big question.
Speaker 5 (27:47):
What is the link between no Fall, the Broker and Irang.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Why would a hit man working with top cocaine traffickers
murder someone apparently on behalf of a government And if
that's what happened, what does that tell us about the
transformation of international organized crime? To find out, We're going
to Ireland to talk to someone who's been following the
(28:15):
family at the heart of the supercartel. From the very start, you.
Speaker 6 (28:20):
Don't know if somebody behind that door has a gun.
The adrenaline is flowing, you know, your heart is racing.
Anything could go wrong.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Hot Money is a 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 gom Jason Gambrell
(29:11):
and Amanda k Wong are the mixing engineers. Sound designed
from Jake Gorsky. Jeremy Warmsley wrote the original music. Our
editor is Sarah Nix, and the executive producers are Jacob
Goldstein and Cheryl Brumley. Special thanks to Rilla Klaff, Marshall Waroven,
Laura Clark, Alistair, Mackie Green Turner, Jude Webber, and rich
(29:31):
Ward
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