June 17, 2025 • 38 mins
In 2020, the Financial Times exposed a 2 billion euro fraud at Wirecard, a high-flying German fintech. Many thought that was the end of the story. But for reporter Sam Jones, it was just the beginning.
This season on Hot Money: Agent of Chaos, from Pushkin Industries and the Financial Times, Jones investigates Wirecard’s chief operating officer who vanished just as Wirecard collapsed. And turned out to also be a Russian spy.
Here’s episode 1. Listen to Hot Money: Agent of Chaos wherever you get your podcasts.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Hi, I'm Sam Jones, and I hope you don't mind
me dropping in to give you a quick preview of
my new podcast, Hot Money, Agent of Chaos. It all
started in twenty twenty when my colleagues at The Financial
Times exposed the German company Wirecade as a huge fraud.
But underneath that I discovered another more elusive tale. Jan
(00:39):
Marselek was more than just Europe's biggest financial con artist.
He was someone who had other lives and his shadow
it seemed to appear in the most unexpected places in
the investigation into a deadly poisoning in the wake of
an Austrian political scandal, in Libya's refugee camps, with mercenaries
in Syria, oligarchs on the French Riviera, Bulgarian criminals in
(01:03):
a dishevelled English seaside resort. I've been pulling together all
these threads to try and understand who Jan Marselek was
and what it is that connects them all. And I
think I've got an explanation for you. It's a story
that says as much about our own society as it
does about the wildlife of one rogue individual. It's about
(01:23):
power and corruption and the secret front line of a
huge geopolitical game that affects us all. I hope you
enjoy this preview, and if you do, find hot Money
Agent of Chaos wherever you listen to your podcasts. It's
a winter's day in twenty eighteen. Paul Murphy is standing
(01:46):
in front of the mirror of the gens lavatory at work.
He's changing for lunch.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Kind of stopped wearing ties, but I think I put
a tie on for that occasion.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Paul is in his mid fifties. He's got a slightly
grizzled look about him. You wouldn't pick him out in
a crowd, but that's an advantage in his line of work.
In his hands, Paul is holding a small disc about
the size of a penny. He takes his shirt off,
grabs a piece of medical tape and fixes this disc
(02:17):
onto his shoulder because this disc is a tiny microphone.
He slips his white shirt back on, puts a jacket
on top, and with one last glance in the mirror,
he's ready for lunch. Paul is the head of investigations
at the Financial Times in London. He takes a cab
(02:38):
across town to Mayfair to a venue called forty five
Park Lane.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
It's you know, it's one of those places that is
priced to keep out to ordinary people. You know. It's
all glass windows and bling and mirrored interiors and very
few customers, very few. It's Dubai style essentially. As Paul
walks in, he tries to keep his cool. Despite four
(03:06):
decades in journalism, this is a first for him. He's
never actually worn a wire himself. It's very, very nerve wracking.
You know, I've got a bug on me. You know,
I didn't want our undercover team to get discovered. That
would be hugely embarrassing, so I was, you know, it's nervous.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
The Maitre d Escot's Paul across the room, and there,
rising from his chair, smiling courteously and greeting Paul with
a handshake, is the man he's come to meet, jan Marcelek.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Very slim, athletic build, razor sharp blue suit.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Paul came here to set a trap to get this
successful businessman on tape. But by the time they finished
their meal, he wonders if he's the one who has
walked into a trap.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
If I'm honest, I felt a bit amateurish. You know,
we were out of our depth. This guy was very
very slick, controlled, careful, polished, and you know I'm not.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
My name is Sam Jones and I'm a journalist with
the Financial Times. I'm a foreign correspondent based in Central Europe.
This lunch you've just heard about. It's the unexpected beginning
of an investigation that has, in one way or another
preoccupied me for the past five years. At the center
of it is the man in the sharp blue suit,
(04:40):
yan Marcelek, a man who I discovered is so fascinated
by risk and deceit that one identity, one life wasn't
enough for him. I find it's often people like this,
the most unusual people who reveal universal truth, the fact
(05:01):
that we're all inventors of our own personal narratives, how
fictions can be stitched together to create realities. This tale
begins in London and Munich, but leaps across the globe,
from Libya to Austria, from Bulgaria to Afghanistan, from the
Codazuur to Moscow. Yan marselex life is a window into
(05:26):
a hidden world of geopolitical power games, games which in
ways big and small, govern our lives. Games which have
never felt more relevant or the players of them harder
to fathom. This is a story about espionage, about Europe,
about Russia, and ultimately America. From the Financial Times and
(05:51):
Pushkin Industries. This is Hot Money, Season three, Agent of Chaos,
Episode one, The Bribe. Paul Murphy hired me to work
(06:13):
for the Ft seventeen years ago. It's been a long
time since Paul's my actual boss, but he was and
still is a mentor to me. All of my best
habits in journalism and some of my worst ones I've
picked up from Paul pretty much since starting my career.
Every couple of months or so I end up at
(06:33):
lunch with him in Sweetings. It's a noisy, crowded fish
restaurant deep in the city, London's Financial district. It's distinctly
old school. Even a bowler hat wouldn't look out of place,
and coming here it underscores less than number one in
the Paul Murphy school of journalism.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
You have to get out of the bloody offers, get
out of the bloody arfis. Young reporters in particular think
that you can do everything digitally, but actually you get
a lot more information of somebody face to face. You'll
have to win people's trust, and one way of doing
that is have lunch with people. It's a great social
setting to develop a relationship with somebody who you need
(07:18):
them to trust you.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I want to paint a bit of a picture for
you about Paul, because it pays in this story to
try and get the measure of people's character, or at
least to try and understand the version of themselves people
present to the world, and why although Paul spends a
lot of time at lunch, he's definitely not just another
city soak. Most people tend to miss the little silver
(07:41):
ring he's wearing, a skull designed by his daughter. People
miss a lot about Paul, but that's part of the trick.
He's very good at being underestimated, and because of that,
he's also very good at getting people to trust him,
to talk to him, and to give him information. To
understand why I was drawn into this story, you need
(08:04):
to know a bit about the reporting that was dominating
Paul's life. Back in twenty eighteen, he and his star
reporter Dan McCrumb were neck deep investigating a German company
called Warecard, a company that was run by the man
in the razor sharp blue suit, the man whom Paul
would eventually meet for lunch in Mayfair, jan Marcelek. Warkard
(08:26):
ran the financial plumbing behind billions of online transactions. It
was so successful at that point it was even secretly
plotting a takeover of Germany's biggest bank. So to the world,
Warkard was a booming digital payments company. To Paul and
his reporter Dan, Warkard was a huge fraud, and they
(08:46):
were well on the way to proving it. But it
was no normal fraud because for months Paul and Dan
they suspected they'd been under intense surveillance, all directed by
someone at Warkard from its base in southern Germany.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
I mean, it's kind of like, almost sounds silly to
recount it, but you know, we were paranoid about being
followed around London. We would get on and off tube
trains quickly, just in case somebody was getting on the
same tube trainer as us. We would turn off our
phones so that a location couldn't be tracked.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Dan had already had his emails hacked and some of
them leaked online. It was an attempt to embarrass and
discredit him. There had been a mounting and seemingly coordinated
attack on his reputation on social media. When Paul told
me all of this over a series of lunches at Sweetings,
I guess he was doing so because he wanted to
know if I had any contact in private intelligence or
(09:46):
even in the actual intelligence services people who might be
able to help, because the subject I really write about,
the subject that has become my specialism at the FT
is spying. Paul was probably also telling me out of
frustration because back then he and Dan had hit a
bit of a wall in their reporting. They'd published all
(10:09):
they could about Warkard based on the evidence they had
gathered so far, but they still didn't have a smoking gun,
and Wakard's aggressive lawyer's shillings had meanwhile come down hard
on them. Dan had only just avoided a ruinous lawsuit.
It wasn't a great time.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
It was this sense that what have we got ourselves into?
That was like a real low moment. Maybe I've got
myself into a bit too much hot water here.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
You do start to worry what.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
You've sort of brought down on your family. It was
quite oppressive. There was this turning point for Dan. One
of his sources rang him up to tell him he'd
been roughed up on the street by two thugs right
outside his children's school. They demanded to know if this
source had passed on confidential information about Warecard. Hearing this
sent Dan into a bit of a tailspin, because suddenly
(11:01):
he was worrying about the safety of his own family.
My first thing was I sort of go home and
obsessively change every single one of my passwords, start checking
all the security on my house. I mean, the worst
moment is we had just moved into this rented house
and I suddenly realized I haven't checked the lock on
(11:24):
this patio door at the back of the house, which
we'd never used, and it just slides straight open, like
our house had essentially been unlocked for the last couple
of months. And at that point I really did start
freaking out about security who might be after us, and
I basically became really paranoid.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
It was right at the peak of this paranoia that
something even stranger happened, something that led to that lunch
at forty five Park Lane, Paul was talking to one
of his oldest sources.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
And we got onto the subject of wire Card. Just
a completely you know, innocent relaxed conversation, and this guy
just suddenly said, you know that they'll pay you a
lot of money to stop writing about them. And I
kind of laughed, and he stopped me and said, no,
(12:16):
they will pay you ten million dollars to stop writing
about them.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
I don't know if you work in the kind of
job or live the kind of life where you've ever
been bribed, but even as a journalist for the ft,
this doesn't really happen, let alone for such a ridiculous
sum of money, I mean, for ten million dollars, what
would you do? And as such, it takes Paul a
while to realize that this is a serious offer. How
(12:43):
do you know this? He asks? Through my son, his
source tells him he's got to know someone at Wakat
pretty well. They've been out together a few times carousing.
He's called jan Marcelek, and then Paul's source he says
something which makes Paul clock that this offer is real.
Marcilek is paying this guy more than two hundred thousand
dollars just to convey the message. You should meet him
(13:07):
for lunch, he suggests. So what does Paul say? Tell
me when, and tell me where Paul has no intention
of taking the bribe, but this backchannel offer it seems
to confirm everything they suspect about Wirecard.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Absolutely confirmed all our suspicions, such were that.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
The company is a criminal enterprise.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Absolutely, this was kind of tangible evidence.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
All they need now is for mass elect to offer
the bribe himself and to get that on tape. It's
time for the FT to mount its own surveillance operation.
So that day at forty five Park Lane, the formal
introduction's over, it's time to order stakes, the overpriced specialty
(13:53):
of this place around one hundred and seventy pounds for
a six ounce filet mignon. Right from the start, though,
Paul begins to feel that Mars leg isn't quite what
he was expecting. Paul is on edge, but he's not alone.
To his relief, it's not long before he spots his
undercover support team, three FT colleagues who pose as wealthy ladies,
(14:16):
catching up over lunch. They snagged a table just next
to him, and they look pretty convincing. One of the
reporters places her handbag on the back of a chair.
Hidden inside a camera films the lunch at an angle,
catching yan Marceilek. In profile, you can hear the tenor
(14:37):
of his voice, but the background noise means it's impossible
to make out his words. To me, watching this footage back,
it's striking how animated he is. He turns from side
to side, addressing everyone at the table. As he talks.
His face lights up. He's sort of holding court, emphasizing
(14:57):
his words with expansive hand gestures. He almost looks like
a politician. The longer the conversation goes on like this,
the more clear it becomes to Paul that Marceilek is
the one in control. This guy is expansive and engaging, charming,
but not at all defensive. There's no trace of anger
(15:19):
or guilt or care. He gently protests about the FT's
unfair coverage of Wacade, as if it's been an inconvenience,
but his whole tone seems to be saying, let's put
this behind us. As they settle into the meal, Paul
nudges the conversation into more dubious terrain, eager to get
(15:40):
something incriminating, even if it's just a hint of something
on tape and on camera.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
I certainly talked about the kind of the aggression that
the business had shown us. And we also talked about
where the journalists were corrupt, and he absolutely assured me
that he knew that journalists could be bought. I remember saying,
we don't take bribes, and remember him very specifically saying,
(16:08):
I know that, Paul, I know you don't have seen
evidence that you don't take bribes. And I thought, Hugh,
you see my bank account. I remember the kind of
jolting that he was kind of like stating this so openly.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
But the conversation continues in this vein nothing concrete. The
killer offer of a bribe Paul had been hoping for, Well,
it's clear that Marcelek is far too savvy an operator
to make it. Here and now at their first meeting.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Pretty quickly, you know, came to the conclusion that I
wasn't going to be offered a bribe in front of
these people.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
A bit of a damp squip in a way, yes,
it was. So Paul is now left wondering, what does
Marcelek want from him? Why has this meeting happened if
he's not actually going to make him some kind of offer.
The lunch lasted about ninety minutes, and at the end,
marcele K insisted on paying and pulled out a gold
(17:07):
credit card, not credit card of solid gold. Was he
a bit of a show off?
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Well, yes, you know, we're in one of the most
expensive restaurants in London eating kind of two hundred quid
steak and he was paying for the bill with a
gold credit card. So yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
As Paul leaves the restaurant, he almost laughs at himself,
having thought he'd be heading back with something explosive, but
he also realizes that this experience actually hasn't been a
busted flush. Far from it. Meeting Yan Marslek has only
intrigued Paul Moore. It's put him into three D. There's
something about mars Lec he can't quite put his finger on.
(17:52):
I felt I'd met somebody who was very controlled, confident,
who was almost certainly corrupt. I basically said, can we
do that again? And indeed Paul does meet with him again.
That's coming up after the break. When Paul first started
(18:23):
telling me about Wacard, I think I treated it all
as entertaining table talk. Paul is a great teller of stories,
and I always enjoyed hearing the gossip about what his
investigations team was up to. After he told me about
meeting Marcelek, though, something began to needle at me, just
a feeling about what kind of person Marslek was, a
(18:43):
feeling I couldn't pin down until I heard about the
second lunch. One month after that lunch at Park Lane,
Paul met Marcelek again, this time without undercover colleagues or
secret cameras. It was just the two of them. They
met at the Lanesborough, another high end hotel in London.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
We talked about geopolitics, We talked about technology, we talked
about finance, you know, we talked about the state of
the world. He had interesting opinions and information on all
these things. If I'm honest, at this stage, I I'd
become fascinated by this character because he seemed to know
(19:25):
so many people, and I kind of I was thinking, well,
you know, he's probably not going to offer me a bribe.
We're not going to just catch him. He's not that stupid.
This guy is smart and he knows people and he
has information.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
At this point, did it occur to you that he'd
charmed you in any way?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Yes, it did, but he was a charming man.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Did you like him yeah, yes, I liked him. If
Wi Card, if you hadn't have known it to be
a fraud, do you think you would have sought to
stay in touch with him?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
I absolutely absolutely. I mean, in actual fact, you know
my thinking after that second lunch I did. I actually thought,
I'm going to, you know, develop this guy as a source.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
What did you think he was hoping to get out
of a relationship with you?
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Actually, it was very clear we posed an existential risk
to wire Card. He knew that by you know, building
a relationship directly with me, that he could potentially stop
as writing about them, or at least did get the
(20:42):
kind of intel in advance about what we were thinking.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
So, as Paul tells me about all of this, the
feeling I get most is that a game is afoot,
and both Paul and Marcelek are enjoying playing it. They've
both established rapport, they're both working to build trust, but
they also test each other, push try to implicate each
(21:10):
other in this polite conversation. And all of this grips
me because in it I see so much of the
kind of psychology that I've spotted glimpses of covering intelligence
and espionage. I recognize the shape of this kind of interaction,
a certain amused, matter of fact detachment from things despite
the stakes. Think about it. Marclek is launching happily with
(21:31):
a man who is trying to destroy the company he
works for and put him in jail. And Paul, while
in a funny way, Paul is being encouraged into a
minor transgression, something that almost felt to me like a
textbook trick from an intelligence recruitment manual, an indiscretion that
might later make you vulnerable. Because Paul does all of
(21:53):
this works Marcelek behind the back of the lead reporter
on the Wirecard Project, Dan McCrumb. Why were you dealing
with Marcelek and not Dan.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Dan and I are different characters. Dan is a guy.
You know, he's tall, and he has all his features
in the right place. And if your daughter brought him
home as a boyfriend, he'd be really happy. You know.
He's a good guy. He's intelligence, he's articulate, he's well educated.
But actually, actually, but actually, Dan is lethal. Dan's like
(22:26):
kind of smiling axe man. He's dangerous. He's yes, he's
absolute forensic and he won't let it lie. And you know,
I have a different style. All right, I'm much softer
and you know, chat people up, and you know, I
present myself as being very kind of clubbable. Do you
know all journalists have different styles.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
I mean, I think you're probably more comfortable playing a.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Role as well.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
No, possibly, yes, reading between the lines, I think probably.
A doubting part of him was also wondering whether the
wark Hard investigation was at a dead end. The threat
of a lawsuit from Shillings meant their reporting had stalled,
and if that was the case, it might be worth
Paul pursuing marce Lek as a source of his own,
(23:09):
someone who could help him with other stories. Then, around
six months after that second meeting, Paul gets a call
from an intermediary. Marcelec conveys that he has something very
interesting to offer documents. He hints at what they're about,
and it sounds outlandish, but it's enough of a hint
(23:31):
that Paul agrees to Marcelex's suggestion that he fly out
to Munich, where Marcelek lives, in order to get them.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
I kept it completely private. Only just the managing editor
that theft knew what I was doing.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
They meet at the Kifashenka. It's a Munich institution, patrician,
reassuringly expensive white tablecloths, paneled rooms, but warm and efficient service,
and it's practically Marcelec's house. Restaurant yand was waiting for
me outside. We went in, but we had a little
private room. I remember having salmon with Caviat and as
(24:07):
they talked, Mars pushed a brown folder full of papers
across the table towards Paul.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Because it's in the restaurants, I couldn't pull them out
and start reading through them. I just had to kind
of politely say thank you very much, I'll have a
read of those. And then we just had a kind
of stilted, awkward lunch conversation. We talked about his bad back.
If I'm honest, I was trying to get out of
the lunch as quickly as possible because I wanted to
see what was in the folder.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
They finished lunch, marce Lex said he had to go
back to the office.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
The restaurant has lots of kind of separate bars and rooms,
and so I literally went down some stairs and found
myself a little corner and sat down and opened the folder.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
These documents they related to something that happened in the
UK that spring something awful which had shocked the whole country.
Yesterday afternoon, passers by noticed two people apparently unconscious a
bench in Salisbury, the area of the Salisbury poisonings.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
As a police presence remains here in the city whilst
they investigate. Residents and visitors to the city have been
reacting to the news.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Yeah, just completely surprised and shocked that something could happen
like this in Salisbury.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
An assassination attempt against a former spy using one of
the deadliest nerve agents ever created a chemical that only
a handful of government specialists knew about, Novichok two thirty four.
The spy was found half dead alongside his unconscious daughter,
but thanks to some remarkable medical work, they both survived.
(25:49):
Another local resident, a mother of three, did not. She
died after coming into contact with the novichok. It had
been hidden by the assassins in a perfume bottle. The
intended target was soon identified as a Russian intelligence officer
who had fled to Britain. In twenty ten, Prime Minister
(26:09):
Theresa May announced to a shocked parliament that Moscow was
to blame.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
The government has concluded that the two individuals named by
the police and CPS are officers from the Russian Military
Intelligence Service, also known as the GRU.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
The GRU the main directorate Russia's fearsome military intelligence agency,
an organization with goals that should have consigned it to
Cold War history misinformation, civil disorder, violence, assassinations. Under Vladimir
Putin's long watch, the GRU has quietly grown in power
(26:51):
and influence. In the weeks that followed the poisoning, Russia
aggressively denied its involvement. The Organization for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons meanwhile launched its own investigation, sending its experts
to Salisbury to pour over the evidence reduced a highly
classified dossier based on shared intelligence and chemical analysis from
(27:15):
the site. The dossier also included Russia's own version of events.
These were the documents Paul now had in his hands.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
It was fascinating to read all these kind of close detail,
you know, the Russian version of the story. And then
the other very interesting part of the documents was the
actual formula for Novi chok.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
The chemical diagram for the poison, a technical outline for
something that had been kept hidden from the world for decades,
a weapon of mass destruction. So what we got fart one, two,
(28:07):
three for five staple chiefs of paper. Those documents that
Marcelett handed over that day at the Kiefashenka. Paul showed
them to me and well, they're internal documents from the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. And these have
been sort of illegally photocopied, right, or so I think
their photocopies anyway.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Yeah, they're all kind of photocopies, except that one is
a PowerPoint presentation. They've all got barcodes on them.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
And this sort of big stamped watermark which says.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
This print out may contain OPCW confidential information warning. Yeah,
they're all different copy numbers though as well, aren't they.
That's one of serious dene This one's twenty one.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is an
international body based in the Hague. Almost all of the
world's big military powers are signatories. Its job is to
police and monitor weapons like Novi chok, to ensure they
are never ever used. What was going through your head
when you kind of first pulled this out of the
(29:11):
manila envelope that they were all in.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Well, I was looking for a story, you know, the
Salisbury poisoning had been headline news for weeks on end.
Suddenly I had, you know, what clearly were kind of
classified documents pertaining specifically to that event. There had to
be a story in it, you know, That's what I
(29:35):
was after, And I was struck at how detailed and
careful and yet completely fanciful the Russian version of events was.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
In the documents. The Russians made the case that the
British had manufactured novichok because Solibury is just down the
road from Port and down a highly secure military research base,
and the Russians they argued that the British government had
somehow leaked the novichoc from its own chemical research lab.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
You know, I asked him, you know, point blank, where
did you get this information? What did he say? He
said he got it from a friend. And he did
actually say that, you know, if I wanted further information,
I should try him in future, that I'd be quite
surprised at the sort of information he could access.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
So this was sort of like a little bit of
an opening, kind of showing his wares, you know that
if you wanted to keep him on side and he
could push other material your way.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Yeah, absolutely that he was basically saying, look, I have
friends in interesting places. I can help you in the future.
We were building a relationship on both sides.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
While all of this unfolded. Dan McCrumb, the lead reporter
on the wire Card investigation, hadn't been sitting still. In fact,
he'd just found his very own treasure trove of documents,
and these documents they would change everything, because they finally
gave Dan the ammunition he needed to prove that Warecard
was a fraud and that Marcelek was at the center
(31:16):
of it. So when Paul got back to London and
Dan told him all of this, Paul knew it was
time to go back on the offensive against Wirecard directly,
and also therefore that it was time to fess up
to Dan and to tell him he'd been secretly lunching
with Marsilek over the past few months. Paul, you know,
(31:37):
he'd gone to meet Marcelect for lunch and he was
kind of cultivating this parallel kind of you know, relationship
with Marcelek. When did you find out about that and
what was your first thought?
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Oh man, there are moments in life when you were
taken by surprise. I basically think he hadn't wanted to
blow my mind whilst I was focused on getting the story,
because the important thing was to get the story out.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
But it had reached the.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Point where it was sort of becoming embarrassing that he
hadn't mentioned that he had quietly been dining with Yan Marslek.
I'm like, sorry, what, But then he goes he's been
flashing around top secret documents with a recipe for Navichok
on them. I think my reaction was if he had
(32:30):
just tried to tell me that Marcelekuld faked the moon landings.
It was so completely out of left field that you're like, sorry,
what did you just say?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
To be clear, we had no evidence that Marcelek actually
had anything to do with carrying out the poisonings, but
the fact that he even had these documents was a bombshell,
not only because the documents made it clear that Marcelek
was entangled with something besides just a huge corporate fraud lord,
but also because Marcelect had effectively chosen to disclose this.
(33:14):
Marcelett pulled the spotlight onto himself, and it made us
realize how little we knew about him at all.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
At that point, we just kind of had this sense
that marcell it was this kind of man of action
and was mixed up somehow in Viennese politics.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Wakaard's aggressive surveillance of Paul and Dan intensified, and they
managed to trace it back to a private security company
in Vienna, the capital of Austria and Marcelec's home city.
Paul and Dan were now going to spend the next
few months battling to prove the fraud with the new
documents Dan had received for me, I was about to
(33:55):
start a foreign posting in Switzerland and in Austria. If
I was going to be on the ground, Paul thought,
then I could surely make some inquiries.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
We already knew that there were a big Vienna angle
to all this. We just didn't know what the angle was.
We just didn't know which doors he had a not gone.
We didn't know who you needed to get to. Yeah,
well it worked, yeh.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
I remember thinking you were mad. I just thought, okay,
all right, I'm just going to go to Austria and
start talking to people about marslect But you know, you
were right. Sometimes it's the smallest, most unpromising or unexpected
little thread that you pull on that suddenly unravels something.
Sometimes that thread is just an intuition, a feeling about someone,
(34:45):
a sense that there's definitely something more here I don't
know about, but that I recognized the shadow of. As
it turned out, this particular trace, well, it would slowly
unravel into a story that wasn't just the sordid tale
of one well connected fraudster, but instead the tale of
one of the biggest spice scandals to have hit Europe
(35:06):
since the Cold War.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
To this day. Remember that first note coming back from you,
just saying that you needed a secure channel to communicate
the detail you put in that first note was just
mind boggling, absolutely shocking. It was like a whole world
just opened up. You know, this was no longer just
(35:28):
about some weird German corporate There was this kind of huge,
geopolitical kind of side to the story that was only
just coming into view.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Maybe you've felt in recent years that the world is
a less certain place, that from the background there are
threats or worries you'd never had to think about before
that are suddenly present. Wars that looked like they might
tip out of control, radical politicians tearing at the threads
of civil society. Lies turned into truth by money. Well,
(36:02):
this story is, in some senses an accounting of that,
a story that can sometimes make you realize how tissue
thin the idea of a stable, law abiding society can
be one that's governed by economic, political, and moral rules
we've all agreed on. It's a story about what kind
of people get drawn into the world on the other
side of that, and what kind of world that is
(36:24):
a space carved out by crime and corruption, where money
and power are unchecked by laws or borders or markets.
That kind of world might sound terrifying, but to some
people it's irresistible. To some people. It's not an alternative
world at all. It's the real world coming up this
(36:48):
season on Hot Money.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
I know politics is corrupt, I know everything and all
that and all that I believed to know that, But
this is too much, I thought. I hope that he
will talk to you and you will be able to
investigate on it, and PEPs misdeeds and misbehavior is stopped
very fast. Actually, is that?
Speaker 4 (37:08):
Then?
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Talking about his.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Experience in Syria, he definitely has a view that he's
operating with complete freedom to do whatever he likes.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
I don't know if they followed me to my home.
The decision was very simple.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
It was a choice between being killed or in prison,
and the other option was just to try to get
real freedom.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
How much of it was an act? How much was
a genius? How much was learned?
Speaker 3 (37:36):
How much was instinctive?
Speaker 4 (37:37):
I often asked myself, now did I know the true
yan at all?
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Hot Money is a production of The Financial Times and
Pushkin Industries. It was written and reported by me Sam Jones.
The senior producer and co writer is Peggy Sutton. Our
producer is Izzy Carter. Our researcher is Marine Saint. Our
show is edited by Karen Schakerji, fact checking by Kira Levigne.
(38:10):
Sound design and mastering by Jake Gorsky and Marcelo de Olivia,
with additional sound design by Izzy Carter. Original music from
Matthias Bossi and John Evans of Stellwagen Symphonet. Our show
art is by Sean Carney. Our executive producers are Cheryl Brumley,
Amy Gains McQuaid and Matthew Garahan. Additional editing by Paul Murphy.
(38:37):
Special thanks to Ruler Calaffe, Dan McCrumb, Laura Clark, Alistair Mackey,
Manuela Saragosa, Nigel Hansson, Vicki Merrick, Eric Sandler, Morgan Ratner,
Jake Flanagan, Jacob Goldstein, Sarah Nix and Greta Cohne. I'm
Sam Jones
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Hi, I'm Sam Jones, and I hope you don't mind
me dropping in to give you a quick preview of
my new podcast, Hot Money, Agent of Chaos. It all
started in twenty twenty when my colleagues at The Financial
Times exposed the German company Wirecade as a huge fraud.
But underneath that I discovered another more elusive tale. Jan
(00:39):
Marselek was more than just Europe's biggest financial con artist.
He was someone who had other lives and his shadow
it seemed to appear in the most unexpected places in
the investigation into a deadly poisoning in the wake of
an Austrian political scandal, in Libya's refugee camps, with mercenaries
in Syria, oligarchs on the French Riviera, Bulgarian criminals in
(01:03):
a dishevelled English seaside resort. I've been pulling together all
these threads to try and understand who Jan Marselek was
and what it is that connects them all. And I
think I've got an explanation for you. It's a story
that says as much about our own society as it
does about the wildlife of one rogue individual. It's about
(01:23):
power and corruption and the secret front line of a
huge geopolitical game that affects us all. I hope you
enjoy this preview, and if you do, find hot Money
Agent of Chaos wherever you listen to your podcasts. It's
a winter's day in twenty eighteen. Paul Murphy is standing
(01:46):
in front of the mirror of the gens lavatory at work.
He's changing for lunch.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Kind of stopped wearing ties, but I think I put
a tie on for that occasion.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Paul is in his mid fifties. He's got a slightly
grizzled look about him. You wouldn't pick him out in
a crowd, but that's an advantage in his line of work.
In his hands, Paul is holding a small disc about
the size of a penny. He takes his shirt off,
grabs a piece of medical tape and fixes this disc
(02:17):
onto his shoulder because this disc is a tiny microphone.
He slips his white shirt back on, puts a jacket
on top, and with one last glance in the mirror,
he's ready for lunch. Paul is the head of investigations
at the Financial Times in London. He takes a cab
(02:38):
across town to Mayfair to a venue called forty five
Park Lane.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
It's you know, it's one of those places that is
priced to keep out to ordinary people. You know. It's
all glass windows and bling and mirrored interiors and very
few customers, very few. It's Dubai style essentially. As Paul
walks in, he tries to keep his cool. Despite four
(03:06):
decades in journalism, this is a first for him. He's
never actually worn a wire himself. It's very, very nerve wracking.
You know, I've got a bug on me. You know,
I didn't want our undercover team to get discovered. That
would be hugely embarrassing, so I was, you know, it's nervous.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
The Maitre d Escot's Paul across the room, and there,
rising from his chair, smiling courteously and greeting Paul with
a handshake, is the man he's come to meet, jan Marcelek.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Very slim, athletic build, razor sharp blue suit.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Paul came here to set a trap to get this
successful businessman on tape. But by the time they finished
their meal, he wonders if he's the one who has
walked into a trap.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
If I'm honest, I felt a bit amateurish. You know,
we were out of our depth. This guy was very
very slick, controlled, careful, polished, and you know I'm not.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
My name is Sam Jones and I'm a journalist with
the Financial Times. I'm a foreign correspondent based in Central Europe.
This lunch you've just heard about. It's the unexpected beginning
of an investigation that has, in one way or another
preoccupied me for the past five years. At the center
of it is the man in the sharp blue suit,
(04:40):
yan Marcelek, a man who I discovered is so fascinated
by risk and deceit that one identity, one life wasn't
enough for him. I find it's often people like this,
the most unusual people who reveal universal truth, the fact
(05:01):
that we're all inventors of our own personal narratives, how
fictions can be stitched together to create realities. This tale
begins in London and Munich, but leaps across the globe,
from Libya to Austria, from Bulgaria to Afghanistan, from the
Codazuur to Moscow. Yan marselex life is a window into
(05:26):
a hidden world of geopolitical power games, games which in
ways big and small, govern our lives. Games which have
never felt more relevant or the players of them harder
to fathom. This is a story about espionage, about Europe,
about Russia, and ultimately America. From the Financial Times and
(05:51):
Pushkin Industries. This is Hot Money, Season three, Agent of Chaos,
Episode one, The Bribe. Paul Murphy hired me to work
(06:13):
for the Ft seventeen years ago. It's been a long
time since Paul's my actual boss, but he was and
still is a mentor to me. All of my best
habits in journalism and some of my worst ones I've
picked up from Paul pretty much since starting my career.
Every couple of months or so I end up at
(06:33):
lunch with him in Sweetings. It's a noisy, crowded fish
restaurant deep in the city, London's Financial district. It's distinctly
old school. Even a bowler hat wouldn't look out of place,
and coming here it underscores less than number one in
the Paul Murphy school of journalism.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
You have to get out of the bloody offers, get
out of the bloody arfis. Young reporters in particular think
that you can do everything digitally, but actually you get
a lot more information of somebody face to face. You'll
have to win people's trust, and one way of doing
that is have lunch with people. It's a great social
setting to develop a relationship with somebody who you need
(07:18):
them to trust you.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I want to paint a bit of a picture for
you about Paul, because it pays in this story to
try and get the measure of people's character, or at
least to try and understand the version of themselves people
present to the world, and why although Paul spends a
lot of time at lunch, he's definitely not just another
city soak. Most people tend to miss the little silver
(07:41):
ring he's wearing, a skull designed by his daughter. People
miss a lot about Paul, but that's part of the trick.
He's very good at being underestimated, and because of that,
he's also very good at getting people to trust him,
to talk to him, and to give him information. To
understand why I was drawn into this story, you need
(08:04):
to know a bit about the reporting that was dominating
Paul's life. Back in twenty eighteen, he and his star
reporter Dan McCrumb were neck deep investigating a German company
called Warecard, a company that was run by the man
in the razor sharp blue suit, the man whom Paul
would eventually meet for lunch in Mayfair, jan Marcelek. Warkard
(08:26):
ran the financial plumbing behind billions of online transactions. It
was so successful at that point it was even secretly
plotting a takeover of Germany's biggest bank. So to the world,
Warkard was a booming digital payments company. To Paul and
his reporter Dan, Warkard was a huge fraud, and they
(08:46):
were well on the way to proving it. But it
was no normal fraud because for months Paul and Dan
they suspected they'd been under intense surveillance, all directed by
someone at Warkard from its base in southern Germany.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
I mean, it's kind of like, almost sounds silly to
recount it, but you know, we were paranoid about being
followed around London. We would get on and off tube
trains quickly, just in case somebody was getting on the
same tube trainer as us. We would turn off our
phones so that a location couldn't be tracked.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Dan had already had his emails hacked and some of
them leaked online. It was an attempt to embarrass and
discredit him. There had been a mounting and seemingly coordinated
attack on his reputation on social media. When Paul told
me all of this over a series of lunches at Sweetings,
I guess he was doing so because he wanted to
know if I had any contact in private intelligence or
(09:46):
even in the actual intelligence services people who might be
able to help, because the subject I really write about,
the subject that has become my specialism at the FT
is spying. Paul was probably also telling me out of
frustration because back then he and Dan had hit a
bit of a wall in their reporting. They'd published all
(10:09):
they could about Warkard based on the evidence they had
gathered so far, but they still didn't have a smoking gun,
and Wakard's aggressive lawyer's shillings had meanwhile come down hard
on them. Dan had only just avoided a ruinous lawsuit.
It wasn't a great time.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
It was this sense that what have we got ourselves into?
That was like a real low moment. Maybe I've got
myself into a bit too much hot water here.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
You do start to worry what.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
You've sort of brought down on your family. It was
quite oppressive. There was this turning point for Dan. One
of his sources rang him up to tell him he'd
been roughed up on the street by two thugs right
outside his children's school. They demanded to know if this
source had passed on confidential information about Warecard. Hearing this
sent Dan into a bit of a tailspin, because suddenly
(11:01):
he was worrying about the safety of his own family.
My first thing was I sort of go home and
obsessively change every single one of my passwords, start checking
all the security on my house. I mean, the worst
moment is we had just moved into this rented house
and I suddenly realized I haven't checked the lock on
(11:24):
this patio door at the back of the house, which
we'd never used, and it just slides straight open, like
our house had essentially been unlocked for the last couple
of months. And at that point I really did start
freaking out about security who might be after us, and
I basically became really paranoid.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
It was right at the peak of this paranoia that
something even stranger happened, something that led to that lunch
at forty five Park Lane, Paul was talking to one
of his oldest sources.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
And we got onto the subject of wire Card. Just
a completely you know, innocent relaxed conversation, and this guy
just suddenly said, you know that they'll pay you a
lot of money to stop writing about them. And I
kind of laughed, and he stopped me and said, no,
(12:16):
they will pay you ten million dollars to stop writing
about them.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
I don't know if you work in the kind of
job or live the kind of life where you've ever
been bribed, but even as a journalist for the ft,
this doesn't really happen, let alone for such a ridiculous
sum of money, I mean, for ten million dollars, what
would you do? And as such, it takes Paul a
while to realize that this is a serious offer. How
(12:43):
do you know this? He asks? Through my son, his
source tells him he's got to know someone at Wakat
pretty well. They've been out together a few times carousing.
He's called jan Marcelek, and then Paul's source he says
something which makes Paul clock that this offer is real.
Marcilek is paying this guy more than two hundred thousand
dollars just to convey the message. You should meet him
(13:07):
for lunch, he suggests. So what does Paul say? Tell
me when, and tell me where Paul has no intention
of taking the bribe, but this backchannel offer it seems
to confirm everything they suspect about Wirecard.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Absolutely confirmed all our suspicions, such were that.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
The company is a criminal enterprise.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Absolutely, this was kind of tangible evidence.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
All they need now is for mass elect to offer
the bribe himself and to get that on tape. It's
time for the FT to mount its own surveillance operation.
So that day at forty five Park Lane, the formal
introduction's over, it's time to order stakes, the overpriced specialty
(13:53):
of this place around one hundred and seventy pounds for
a six ounce filet mignon. Right from the start, though,
Paul begins to feel that Mars leg isn't quite what
he was expecting. Paul is on edge, but he's not alone.
To his relief, it's not long before he spots his
undercover support team, three FT colleagues who pose as wealthy ladies,
(14:16):
catching up over lunch. They snagged a table just next
to him, and they look pretty convincing. One of the
reporters places her handbag on the back of a chair.
Hidden inside a camera films the lunch at an angle,
catching yan Marceilek. In profile, you can hear the tenor
(14:37):
of his voice, but the background noise means it's impossible
to make out his words. To me, watching this footage back,
it's striking how animated he is. He turns from side
to side, addressing everyone at the table. As he talks.
His face lights up. He's sort of holding court, emphasizing
(14:57):
his words with expansive hand gestures. He almost looks like
a politician. The longer the conversation goes on like this,
the more clear it becomes to Paul that Marceilek is
the one in control. This guy is expansive and engaging, charming,
but not at all defensive. There's no trace of anger
(15:19):
or guilt or care. He gently protests about the FT's
unfair coverage of Wacade, as if it's been an inconvenience,
but his whole tone seems to be saying, let's put
this behind us. As they settle into the meal, Paul
nudges the conversation into more dubious terrain, eager to get
(15:40):
something incriminating, even if it's just a hint of something
on tape and on camera.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
I certainly talked about the kind of the aggression that
the business had shown us. And we also talked about
where the journalists were corrupt, and he absolutely assured me
that he knew that journalists could be bought. I remember saying,
we don't take bribes, and remember him very specifically saying,
(16:08):
I know that, Paul, I know you don't have seen
evidence that you don't take bribes. And I thought, Hugh,
you see my bank account. I remember the kind of
jolting that he was kind of like stating this so openly.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
But the conversation continues in this vein nothing concrete. The
killer offer of a bribe Paul had been hoping for, Well,
it's clear that Marcelek is far too savvy an operator
to make it. Here and now at their first meeting.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Pretty quickly, you know, came to the conclusion that I
wasn't going to be offered a bribe in front of
these people.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
A bit of a damp squip in a way, yes,
it was. So Paul is now left wondering, what does
Marcelek want from him? Why has this meeting happened if
he's not actually going to make him some kind of offer.
The lunch lasted about ninety minutes, and at the end,
marcele K insisted on paying and pulled out a gold
(17:07):
credit card, not credit card of solid gold. Was he
a bit of a show off?
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Well, yes, you know, we're in one of the most
expensive restaurants in London eating kind of two hundred quid
steak and he was paying for the bill with a
gold credit card. So yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
As Paul leaves the restaurant, he almost laughs at himself,
having thought he'd be heading back with something explosive, but
he also realizes that this experience actually hasn't been a
busted flush. Far from it. Meeting Yan Marslek has only
intrigued Paul Moore. It's put him into three D. There's
something about mars Lec he can't quite put his finger on.
(17:52):
I felt I'd met somebody who was very controlled, confident,
who was almost certainly corrupt. I basically said, can we
do that again? And indeed Paul does meet with him again.
That's coming up after the break. When Paul first started
(18:23):
telling me about Wacard, I think I treated it all
as entertaining table talk. Paul is a great teller of stories,
and I always enjoyed hearing the gossip about what his
investigations team was up to. After he told me about
meeting Marcelek, though, something began to needle at me, just
a feeling about what kind of person Marslek was, a
(18:43):
feeling I couldn't pin down until I heard about the
second lunch. One month after that lunch at Park Lane,
Paul met Marcelek again, this time without undercover colleagues or
secret cameras. It was just the two of them. They
met at the Lanesborough, another high end hotel in London.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
We talked about geopolitics, We talked about technology, we talked
about finance, you know, we talked about the state of
the world. He had interesting opinions and information on all
these things. If I'm honest, at this stage, I I'd
become fascinated by this character because he seemed to know
(19:25):
so many people, and I kind of I was thinking, well,
you know, he's probably not going to offer me a bribe.
We're not going to just catch him. He's not that stupid.
This guy is smart and he knows people and he
has information.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
At this point, did it occur to you that he'd
charmed you in any way?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Yes, it did, but he was a charming man.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Did you like him yeah, yes, I liked him. If
Wi Card, if you hadn't have known it to be
a fraud, do you think you would have sought to
stay in touch with him?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
I absolutely absolutely. I mean, in actual fact, you know
my thinking after that second lunch I did. I actually thought,
I'm going to, you know, develop this guy as a source.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
What did you think he was hoping to get out
of a relationship with you?
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Actually, it was very clear we posed an existential risk
to wire Card. He knew that by you know, building
a relationship directly with me, that he could potentially stop
as writing about them, or at least did get the
(20:42):
kind of intel in advance about what we were thinking.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
So, as Paul tells me about all of this, the
feeling I get most is that a game is afoot,
and both Paul and Marcelek are enjoying playing it. They've
both established rapport, they're both working to build trust, but
they also test each other, push try to implicate each
(21:10):
other in this polite conversation. And all of this grips
me because in it I see so much of the
kind of psychology that I've spotted glimpses of covering intelligence
and espionage. I recognize the shape of this kind of interaction,
a certain amused, matter of fact detachment from things despite
the stakes. Think about it. Marclek is launching happily with
(21:31):
a man who is trying to destroy the company he
works for and put him in jail. And Paul, while
in a funny way, Paul is being encouraged into a
minor transgression, something that almost felt to me like a
textbook trick from an intelligence recruitment manual, an indiscretion that
might later make you vulnerable. Because Paul does all of
(21:53):
this works Marcelek behind the back of the lead reporter
on the Wirecard Project, Dan McCrumb. Why were you dealing
with Marcelek and not Dan.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Dan and I are different characters. Dan is a guy.
You know, he's tall, and he has all his features
in the right place. And if your daughter brought him
home as a boyfriend, he'd be really happy. You know.
He's a good guy. He's intelligence, he's articulate, he's well educated.
But actually, actually, but actually, Dan is lethal. Dan's like
(22:26):
kind of smiling axe man. He's dangerous. He's yes, he's
absolute forensic and he won't let it lie. And you know,
I have a different style. All right, I'm much softer
and you know, chat people up, and you know, I
present myself as being very kind of clubbable. Do you
know all journalists have different styles.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
I mean, I think you're probably more comfortable playing a.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Role as well.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
No, possibly, yes, reading between the lines, I think probably.
A doubting part of him was also wondering whether the
wark Hard investigation was at a dead end. The threat
of a lawsuit from Shillings meant their reporting had stalled,
and if that was the case, it might be worth
Paul pursuing marce Lek as a source of his own,
(23:09):
someone who could help him with other stories. Then, around
six months after that second meeting, Paul gets a call
from an intermediary. Marcelec conveys that he has something very
interesting to offer documents. He hints at what they're about,
and it sounds outlandish, but it's enough of a hint
(23:31):
that Paul agrees to Marcelex's suggestion that he fly out
to Munich, where Marcelek lives, in order to get them.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
I kept it completely private. Only just the managing editor
that theft knew what I was doing.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
They meet at the Kifashenka. It's a Munich institution, patrician,
reassuringly expensive white tablecloths, paneled rooms, but warm and efficient service,
and it's practically Marcelec's house. Restaurant yand was waiting for
me outside. We went in, but we had a little
private room. I remember having salmon with Caviat and as
(24:07):
they talked, Mars pushed a brown folder full of papers
across the table towards Paul.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Because it's in the restaurants, I couldn't pull them out
and start reading through them. I just had to kind
of politely say thank you very much, I'll have a
read of those. And then we just had a kind
of stilted, awkward lunch conversation. We talked about his bad back.
If I'm honest, I was trying to get out of
the lunch as quickly as possible because I wanted to
see what was in the folder.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
They finished lunch, marce Lex said he had to go
back to the office.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
The restaurant has lots of kind of separate bars and rooms,
and so I literally went down some stairs and found
myself a little corner and sat down and opened the folder.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
These documents they related to something that happened in the
UK that spring something awful which had shocked the whole country.
Yesterday afternoon, passers by noticed two people apparently unconscious a
bench in Salisbury, the area of the Salisbury poisonings.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
As a police presence remains here in the city whilst
they investigate. Residents and visitors to the city have been
reacting to the news.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Yeah, just completely surprised and shocked that something could happen
like this in Salisbury.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
An assassination attempt against a former spy using one of
the deadliest nerve agents ever created a chemical that only
a handful of government specialists knew about, Novichok two thirty four.
The spy was found half dead alongside his unconscious daughter,
but thanks to some remarkable medical work, they both survived.
(25:49):
Another local resident, a mother of three, did not. She
died after coming into contact with the novichok. It had
been hidden by the assassins in a perfume bottle. The
intended target was soon identified as a Russian intelligence officer
who had fled to Britain. In twenty ten, Prime Minister
(26:09):
Theresa May announced to a shocked parliament that Moscow was
to blame.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
The government has concluded that the two individuals named by
the police and CPS are officers from the Russian Military
Intelligence Service, also known as the GRU.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
The GRU the main directorate Russia's fearsome military intelligence agency,
an organization with goals that should have consigned it to
Cold War history misinformation, civil disorder, violence, assassinations. Under Vladimir
Putin's long watch, the GRU has quietly grown in power
(26:51):
and influence. In the weeks that followed the poisoning, Russia
aggressively denied its involvement. The Organization for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons meanwhile launched its own investigation, sending its experts
to Salisbury to pour over the evidence reduced a highly
classified dossier based on shared intelligence and chemical analysis from
(27:15):
the site. The dossier also included Russia's own version of events.
These were the documents Paul now had in his hands.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
It was fascinating to read all these kind of close detail,
you know, the Russian version of the story. And then
the other very interesting part of the documents was the
actual formula for Novi chok.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
The chemical diagram for the poison, a technical outline for
something that had been kept hidden from the world for decades,
a weapon of mass destruction. So what we got fart one, two,
(28:07):
three for five staple chiefs of paper. Those documents that
Marcelett handed over that day at the Kiefashenka. Paul showed
them to me and well, they're internal documents from the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. And these have
been sort of illegally photocopied, right, or so I think
their photocopies anyway.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Yeah, they're all kind of photocopies, except that one is
a PowerPoint presentation. They've all got barcodes on them.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
And this sort of big stamped watermark which says.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
This print out may contain OPCW confidential information warning. Yeah,
they're all different copy numbers though as well, aren't they.
That's one of serious dene This one's twenty one.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is an
international body based in the Hague. Almost all of the
world's big military powers are signatories. Its job is to
police and monitor weapons like Novi chok, to ensure they
are never ever used. What was going through your head
when you kind of first pulled this out of the
(29:11):
manila envelope that they were all in.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Well, I was looking for a story, you know, the
Salisbury poisoning had been headline news for weeks on end.
Suddenly I had, you know, what clearly were kind of
classified documents pertaining specifically to that event. There had to
be a story in it, you know, That's what I
(29:35):
was after, And I was struck at how detailed and
careful and yet completely fanciful the Russian version of events was.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
In the documents. The Russians made the case that the
British had manufactured novichok because Solibury is just down the
road from Port and down a highly secure military research base,
and the Russians they argued that the British government had
somehow leaked the novichoc from its own chemical research lab.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
You know, I asked him, you know, point blank, where
did you get this information? What did he say? He
said he got it from a friend. And he did
actually say that, you know, if I wanted further information,
I should try him in future, that I'd be quite
surprised at the sort of information he could access.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
So this was sort of like a little bit of
an opening, kind of showing his wares, you know that
if you wanted to keep him on side and he
could push other material your way.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Yeah, absolutely that he was basically saying, look, I have
friends in interesting places. I can help you in the future.
We were building a relationship on both sides.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
While all of this unfolded. Dan McCrumb, the lead reporter
on the wire Card investigation, hadn't been sitting still. In fact,
he'd just found his very own treasure trove of documents,
and these documents they would change everything, because they finally
gave Dan the ammunition he needed to prove that Warecard
was a fraud and that Marcelek was at the center
(31:16):
of it. So when Paul got back to London and
Dan told him all of this, Paul knew it was
time to go back on the offensive against Wirecard directly,
and also therefore that it was time to fess up
to Dan and to tell him he'd been secretly lunching
with Marsilek over the past few months. Paul, you know,
(31:37):
he'd gone to meet Marcelect for lunch and he was
kind of cultivating this parallel kind of you know, relationship
with Marcelek. When did you find out about that and
what was your first thought?
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Oh man, there are moments in life when you were
taken by surprise. I basically think he hadn't wanted to
blow my mind whilst I was focused on getting the story,
because the important thing was to get the story out.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
But it had reached the.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Point where it was sort of becoming embarrassing that he
hadn't mentioned that he had quietly been dining with Yan Marslek.
I'm like, sorry, what, But then he goes he's been
flashing around top secret documents with a recipe for Navichok
on them. I think my reaction was if he had
(32:30):
just tried to tell me that Marcelekuld faked the moon landings.
It was so completely out of left field that you're like, sorry,
what did you just say?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
To be clear, we had no evidence that Marcelek actually
had anything to do with carrying out the poisonings, but
the fact that he even had these documents was a bombshell,
not only because the documents made it clear that Marcelek
was entangled with something besides just a huge corporate fraud lord,
but also because Marcelect had effectively chosen to disclose this.
(33:14):
Marcelett pulled the spotlight onto himself, and it made us
realize how little we knew about him at all.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
At that point, we just kind of had this sense
that marcell it was this kind of man of action
and was mixed up somehow in Viennese politics.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Wakaard's aggressive surveillance of Paul and Dan intensified, and they
managed to trace it back to a private security company
in Vienna, the capital of Austria and Marcelec's home city.
Paul and Dan were now going to spend the next
few months battling to prove the fraud with the new
documents Dan had received for me, I was about to
(33:55):
start a foreign posting in Switzerland and in Austria. If
I was going to be on the ground, Paul thought,
then I could surely make some inquiries.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
We already knew that there were a big Vienna angle
to all this. We just didn't know what the angle was.
We just didn't know which doors he had a not gone.
We didn't know who you needed to get to. Yeah,
well it worked, yeh.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
I remember thinking you were mad. I just thought, okay,
all right, I'm just going to go to Austria and
start talking to people about marslect But you know, you
were right. Sometimes it's the smallest, most unpromising or unexpected
little thread that you pull on that suddenly unravels something.
Sometimes that thread is just an intuition, a feeling about someone,
(34:45):
a sense that there's definitely something more here I don't
know about, but that I recognized the shadow of. As
it turned out, this particular trace, well, it would slowly
unravel into a story that wasn't just the sordid tale
of one well connected fraudster, but instead the tale of
one of the biggest spice scandals to have hit Europe
(35:06):
since the Cold War.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
To this day. Remember that first note coming back from you,
just saying that you needed a secure channel to communicate
the detail you put in that first note was just
mind boggling, absolutely shocking. It was like a whole world
just opened up. You know, this was no longer just
(35:28):
about some weird German corporate There was this kind of huge,
geopolitical kind of side to the story that was only
just coming into view.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Maybe you've felt in recent years that the world is
a less certain place, that from the background there are
threats or worries you'd never had to think about before
that are suddenly present. Wars that looked like they might
tip out of control, radical politicians tearing at the threads
of civil society. Lies turned into truth by money. Well,
(36:02):
this story is, in some senses an accounting of that,
a story that can sometimes make you realize how tissue
thin the idea of a stable, law abiding society can
be one that's governed by economic, political, and moral rules
we've all agreed on. It's a story about what kind
of people get drawn into the world on the other
side of that, and what kind of world that is
(36:24):
a space carved out by crime and corruption, where money
and power are unchecked by laws or borders or markets.
That kind of world might sound terrifying, but to some
people it's irresistible. To some people. It's not an alternative
world at all. It's the real world coming up this
(36:48):
season on Hot Money.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
I know politics is corrupt, I know everything and all
that and all that I believed to know that, But
this is too much, I thought. I hope that he
will talk to you and you will be able to
investigate on it, and PEPs misdeeds and misbehavior is stopped
very fast. Actually, is that?
Speaker 4 (37:08):
Then?
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Talking about his.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Experience in Syria, he definitely has a view that he's
operating with complete freedom to do whatever he likes.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
I don't know if they followed me to my home.
The decision was very simple.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
It was a choice between being killed or in prison,
and the other option was just to try to get
real freedom.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
How much of it was an act? How much was
a genius? How much was learned?
Speaker 3 (37:36):
How much was instinctive?
Speaker 4 (37:37):
I often asked myself, now did I know the true
yan at all?
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Hot Money is a production of The Financial Times and
Pushkin Industries. It was written and reported by me Sam Jones.
The senior producer and co writer is Peggy Sutton. Our
producer is Izzy Carter. Our researcher is Marine Saint. Our
show is edited by Karen Schakerji, fact checking by Kira Levigne.
(38:10):
Sound design and mastering by Jake Gorsky and Marcelo de Olivia,
with additional sound design by Izzy Carter. Original music from
Matthias Bossi and John Evans of Stellwagen Symphonet. Our show
art is by Sean Carney. Our executive producers are Cheryl Brumley,
Amy Gains McQuaid and Matthew Garahan. Additional editing by Paul Murphy.
(38:37):
Special thanks to Ruler Calaffe, Dan McCrumb, Laura Clark, Alistair Mackey,
Manuela Saragosa, Nigel Hansson, Vicki Merrick, Eric Sandler, Morgan Ratner,
Jake Flanagan, Jacob Goldstein, Sarah Nix and Greta Cohne. I'm
Sam Jones
Host
Lucy Sherriff
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