WEBVTT - Amy Allwine Had No Idea A Stranger Online Was Paid To Kill Her 0:00:06.552 --> 0:00:10.072 True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and 0:00:10.152 --> 0:00:12.272 waters that this podcast was recorded on. 0:00:16.952 --> 0:00:20.392 It's a November evening in twenty sixteen, and police have 0:00:20.472 --> 0:00:23.912 just arrived at a family home in Cottage Grove, Minneapolis. 0:00:24.912 --> 0:00:27.392 Stephen Orwine and his nine year old son are waiting 0:00:27.432 --> 0:00:32.192 on the street after calling nine one one. Inside, officers 0:00:32.192 --> 0:00:34.592 are hit with the smell of roasting pumpkin on the 0:00:34.632 --> 0:00:39.351 stovetop as they make their way towards the master bedroom. Inside, 0:00:39.872 --> 0:00:41.912 they find the body of Amy or Wine on the 0:00:41.952 --> 0:00:45.272 floor with a single gunshot wound to the head and 0:00:45.312 --> 0:00:48.872 a gun lying in the crook of her left arm. 0:00:49.111 --> 0:00:52.711 It doesn't take long to confirm that Amy is right handed, 0:00:53.512 --> 0:00:58.392 she didn't inflict this wound herself. They realize that this 0:00:58.512 --> 0:01:01.712 is a murder, that this has been made to look 0:01:01.952 --> 0:01:06.912 like a suicide, but not just any murder. Amy's name 0:01:07.032 --> 0:01:09.632 is one of one hundreds on a giant list doing 0:01:09.672 --> 0:01:12.392 the rounds on the dark web, full of requests to 0:01:12.512 --> 0:01:16.792 fake accidents and disappear people for money. This is just 0:01:16.872 --> 0:01:28.312 one story on the kill list. I'm Jemma Bath and 0:01:28.392 --> 0:01:32.191 this is True Crime Conversations Amoma mea podcast exploring the 0:01:32.191 --> 0:01:35.512 world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who 0:01:35.551 --> 0:01:39.232 know the most about them. Six months before Amy's death, 0:01:39.512 --> 0:01:41.831 the FBI tracked her down and told her that someone 0:01:41.872 --> 0:01:44.112 had made a death threat against her on the internet. 0:01:44.752 --> 0:01:48.032 An unknown person going by the username dog day God 0:01:48.472 --> 0:01:52.352 had paid thirteen thousand dollars in bitcoin to have her murdered. 0:01:53.432 --> 0:01:56.512 But Amy wasn't the only name on that list, and 0:01:56.552 --> 0:01:59.231 it's a list that our guest Today journalist Carl Miller 0:01:59.712 --> 0:02:02.512 found himself staring at in twenty twenty, thanks to a 0:02:02.592 --> 0:02:06.112 hacker friend who stumbled across it. Over the past four 0:02:06.152 --> 0:02:09.032 year years, Miller and his team have intercepted one hundred 0:02:09.072 --> 0:02:12.712 and seventy five kill orders, leading to thirty four arrests 0:02:12.952 --> 0:02:16.752 and twenty eight convictions in eleven countries, resulting in over 0:02:16.832 --> 0:02:20.672 one hundred and fifty years of custodial time. He has 0:02:20.712 --> 0:02:24.472 dedicated his life over the past few years to infiltrating 0:02:24.512 --> 0:02:28.432 an assassins for higher dark Web marketplace, and it's led 0:02:28.472 --> 0:02:31.752 him to some pretty grim places, which he's been sharing 0:02:31.872 --> 0:02:35.112 in his podcast kill List Karl joins us. 0:02:35.112 --> 0:02:39.232 Now, Karl, how. 0:02:39.032 --> 0:02:41.832 Did you find yourself looking at a kill list with 0:02:41.872 --> 0:02:46.032 the names of hundreds of ordinary people on it unexpectedly. 0:02:47.312 --> 0:02:50.792 It was really not anything that I set out to do. 0:02:51.392 --> 0:02:55.552 It was something that honestly landed in my lap. One 0:02:55.632 --> 0:02:58.912 day early twenty twenty, just as kind of COVID was 0:02:58.952 --> 0:03:02.512 collapsing society around all of us, a hacker who I 0:03:02.592 --> 0:03:05.392 had come to know Kres. Myself and him, we had 0:03:05.392 --> 0:03:08.832 been looking at these assassination markets on the Darknet, which 0:03:08.832 --> 0:03:11.672 were hiding in plain sight. They were very they were 0:03:11.752 --> 0:03:14.152 very obvious, they were very visible. They were marketing themselves 0:03:14.192 --> 0:03:16.392 in factors being the kind of go to places for 0:03:16.432 --> 0:03:19.032 someone to take out a hit on someone else. And 0:03:19.072 --> 0:03:23.312 then in twenty twenty one day, Chris phones me. He 0:03:23.432 --> 0:03:28.192 sounds like extremely agitated, quite upset, and it's because he 0:03:28.312 --> 0:03:32.192 has found a vulnerability. He found this kind of tiny 0:03:32.192 --> 0:03:36.472 little flaw in the way that this website worked, and 0:03:37.152 --> 0:03:40.712 he had just kind of wiggled through it and found 0:03:40.792 --> 0:03:44.352 himself basically in the middle or the back end of 0:03:44.392 --> 0:03:48.112 the website. And there suddenly he can see all these 0:03:48.232 --> 0:03:50.352 kill orders that are being sent into the into the 0:03:50.392 --> 0:03:53.232 site itself, and the next day there they are landing 0:03:53.232 --> 0:03:53.872 in my own box. 0:03:54.312 --> 0:03:57.032 Where were you at this point in time? Were you 0:03:57.112 --> 0:03:58.872 Were you a crime writer? Were you used to this 0:03:58.952 --> 0:03:59.432 kind of thing? 0:04:00.832 --> 0:04:04.232 No, I mean I not not a crime writer and 0:04:04.432 --> 0:04:08.392 not a hardened journalist at all. You know my background. 0:04:08.392 --> 0:04:11.312 So I'm basically a think tanker. I like kind of wafty, 0:04:11.432 --> 0:04:15.392 big concepts, and I write pamphlets about how digital technology 0:04:15.432 --> 0:04:18.952 is kind of changing the nature of society or politics. 0:04:18.992 --> 0:04:21.351 Now I had done a bit, I'd written a book 0:04:21.392 --> 0:04:25.231 about power in the digital age, and I was interested 0:04:25.352 --> 0:04:28.111 in how it was changing in all these different arena 0:04:28.152 --> 0:04:30.872 of our lives, including crime. So I had spent a 0:04:30.912 --> 0:04:33.832 bit of time with the police, I'd spent a bit 0:04:33.872 --> 0:04:36.792 of time interviewing cyber criminals, and a bit of time 0:04:36.832 --> 0:04:39.712 with people like Chris who were digging into the kind 0:04:39.712 --> 0:04:42.672 of how crime was really working on places like the darknet. 0:04:43.072 --> 0:04:46.152 But absolutely at the kind of most general level, like 0:04:46.232 --> 0:04:48.392 nothing so tangible was what I was going to be 0:04:48.432 --> 0:04:50.112 facing them. Then they're kind of years ahead. 0:04:50.912 --> 0:04:54.432 What does the front end of this marketplace or website 0:04:54.472 --> 0:04:57.192 that Chris found? What does it look like to someone 0:04:57.192 --> 0:04:58.992 that stumbles across it, someone. 0:04:58.792 --> 0:05:03.272 Was stumbles across it, or someone that finds it deliberately. Yeah, well, 0:05:03.392 --> 0:05:08.472 so the website looks like a out of the nineteen nineties. Right, 0:05:08.832 --> 0:05:13.392 it's black, it's kind of got white text. There's kind 0:05:13.472 --> 0:05:19.792 of stock imagery of people wearing hoodies. Actually, ironically, some 0:05:19.832 --> 0:05:23.512 of the same stock imagery has been used by kind 0:05:23.552 --> 0:05:26.192 of media organizations reporting on the podcast Believe It or Not. 0:05:26.272 --> 0:05:28.392 Oh really yeah, and kind of interlates with all of 0:05:28.432 --> 0:05:32.671 that is nasty pictures of dead bodies, people holding guns, 0:05:32.792 --> 0:05:36.992 blood and the kind of pitch is hey with a mafia. 0:05:37.672 --> 0:05:39.792 Now we have a kind of dishtol wing as well. 0:05:39.952 --> 0:05:42.792 You know, we too have have gone into e commerce, 0:05:43.352 --> 0:05:45.112 you know, and we set up this kind of portal 0:05:45.272 --> 0:05:48.431 so that you can use us as a trusted third 0:05:48.472 --> 0:05:51.432 party to hire a hit man. So they say, we'll 0:05:51.472 --> 0:05:53.952 take your money, we'll connect up with a hit man, 0:05:54.312 --> 0:05:57.111 but we're only going to release some money to them 0:05:57.432 --> 0:05:59.712 once you tell us that you're happy that the person 0:05:59.712 --> 0:06:02.672 that you've targeted has really been killed. To be honest, 0:06:02.712 --> 0:06:07.072 like Jemmy, for anyone carrying any kind of skeepticism with 0:06:07.112 --> 0:06:11.912 them onto that site, there's pretty loud flags that it 0:06:12.072 --> 0:06:14.952 isn't that legitimate. I mean, it's got a copyright symbol 0:06:14.992 --> 0:06:17.752 on it, it's got lots of things that kind of 0:06:18.072 --> 0:06:21.752 make it appear like it's trying to be a legitimate 0:06:21.792 --> 0:06:24.952 website and wouldn't even remotely have on if it was 0:06:24.952 --> 0:06:26.791 actually genuinely being written by the mafia. 0:06:27.432 --> 0:06:30.032 I guess if you have decided you want to kill someone, 0:06:30.072 --> 0:06:33.632 you're not looking at those red flags, No. 0:06:33.672 --> 0:06:36.351 You're looking for the green flags. You're desperately looking for 0:06:36.352 --> 0:06:39.072 a solution to your problem, and here is a website 0:06:39.112 --> 0:06:43.552 that purports to offer you exactly that safe. Anonymous remotely 0:06:43.592 --> 0:06:47.232 transacted murder for higher and for people around the world, 0:06:47.312 --> 0:06:49.192 that is, at least it seems to them at the 0:06:49.232 --> 0:06:52.072 time like an absolute you know, like a panacea. 0:06:52.872 --> 0:06:55.952 One of the names on the list was amial Wine. 0:06:56.072 --> 0:07:00.152 She was murdered in twenty sixteen. How did police unravel 0:07:00.192 --> 0:07:02.992 that case because they realized pretty quickly it wasn't suicide 0:07:03.072 --> 0:07:06.712 as it initially appeared. What actually transpired, what. 0:07:06.712 --> 0:07:11.632 I transpired, was that an anonymous tipster had initially gone 0:07:11.672 --> 0:07:14.672 to the police with some information to say that a 0:07:14.792 --> 0:07:19.912 shadowy darknet music called dog Day God had been trying 0:07:19.992 --> 0:07:24.592 to hire someone to kill Amy. The police had in 0:07:24.592 --> 0:07:27.832 fact gone to Amy's house. I think a member of 0:07:27.832 --> 0:07:30.112 the local police department in Cottage Grove and a member 0:07:30.112 --> 0:07:33.472 of the FBI, and warned her and her husband that 0:07:33.512 --> 0:07:36.832 there was internet threats. I think that was the vocabulary 0:07:36.832 --> 0:07:39.832 they used, kind of these internet threats about her. They 0:07:39.872 --> 0:07:43.112 said that she should stay alert, and I believe they 0:07:43.112 --> 0:07:45.432 actually also said that they should buy a firearm to 0:07:45.472 --> 0:07:48.992 protect themselves. And then it was exactly that firearm that 0:07:49.352 --> 0:07:52.712 was used in an apparent suicide by Amy I think 0:07:52.712 --> 0:07:55.392 a couple of weeks later, and that was when the 0:07:55.432 --> 0:07:58.712 police kind of reattended the house sadly, of course, found 0:07:58.752 --> 0:08:01.832 Amy's body and then began an investigation to try and 0:08:01.832 --> 0:08:05.272 work out what happened. I think there was a hair's 0:08:05.352 --> 0:08:08.912 breadth diction between them closing the case that night and 0:08:08.992 --> 0:08:13.032 deciding it was a suicide and actually keeping it open. 0:08:13.672 --> 0:08:17.872 I think there was one police detective at the scene 0:08:17.872 --> 0:08:21.792 that night that had a kind of a bad feeling 0:08:22.752 --> 0:08:25.032 thought let's us keep it open. He was about to 0:08:25.112 --> 0:08:26.992 kind of declare it a suicide and they were going 0:08:27.032 --> 0:08:29.312 to scrub the house down, and he didn't, and they 0:08:29.312 --> 0:08:32.352 sent a forensics team and began to learn very quickly 0:08:32.511 --> 0:08:34.672 that something much more sinous to had happened. 0:08:35.151 --> 0:08:39.391 Jumping ahead and spoiling the story but it turns out 0:08:39.392 --> 0:08:42.912 to be her husband that murdered her in that house, 0:08:43.072 --> 0:08:46.112 and he'd gone through this website, hadn't he. 0:08:45.832 --> 0:08:49.032 He was dog Day God. So they found clear evidence 0:08:49.072 --> 0:08:52.232 actually then used in the trial linking him to the 0:08:52.272 --> 0:08:55.192 payments that dog Day God had made to the site, 0:08:55.712 --> 0:08:58.432 and in fact, I think other kind of technical information 0:08:58.712 --> 0:09:02.232 regarding the login and things like that that basically proved 0:09:02.272 --> 0:09:03.912 that he was dog Day God and he was using 0:09:03.952 --> 0:09:05.712 the site to try and have Amy kield before he 0:09:05.752 --> 0:09:07.391 decided to take into his own hands. 0:09:07.432 --> 0:09:09.992 Yeah, and why was the reason he took it into 0:09:09.992 --> 0:09:11.032 his own hands. 0:09:10.992 --> 0:09:14.512 Because the site never delivered the murder, and the site 0:09:14.512 --> 0:09:15.552 never delivers. 0:09:15.192 --> 0:09:17.072 The murders, so it's a scam. 0:09:17.272 --> 0:09:20.792 So it's a scam. What happened to Stephen Rwine dog 0:09:20.872 --> 0:09:23.272 de God happened to every other user of the site 0:09:23.352 --> 0:09:26.392 eventually as well, which is after the payment was made. 0:09:26.432 --> 0:09:29.952 And apparently the hitmen is dispatched, they get lost and 0:09:29.992 --> 0:09:32.151 they lose their weapon and they can't find their way 0:09:32.192 --> 0:09:34.312 to the house, and a more highly trained hit man 0:09:34.392 --> 0:09:36.032 has to be hired instead. And you could see in 0:09:36.032 --> 0:09:38.552 the messages that dog dea God sent this kind of 0:09:38.712 --> 0:09:43.512 climbing sense of urgency, of frustration, time and again. You know, 0:09:44.272 --> 0:09:46.592 he saw that the murder hadn't been carried out of 0:09:46.592 --> 0:09:50.151 the allotted time, and eventually, he, like lots of users 0:09:50.152 --> 0:09:51.872 on that site, he was asking for his money back. 0:09:52.232 --> 0:09:54.832 I'm sure that the listeners are starting to it's starting 0:09:54.872 --> 0:09:56.952 to tick over in their head why this is so dangerous. 0:09:57.032 --> 0:10:00.952 It's You've got these ordinary people ordering hits on people 0:10:00.952 --> 0:10:03.312 in their lives, realizing it's not going to happen, and 0:10:03.352 --> 0:10:06.112 then the threat of something like what Stephen did is 0:10:06.312 --> 0:10:09.312 really high that they could end up taking matters into 0:10:09.312 --> 0:10:10.392 their own hands. 0:10:11.112 --> 0:10:14.672 That's right, and in twenty twenty, the memory of Amy 0:10:15.312 --> 0:10:17.552 was the first thing that I think was in my 0:10:17.712 --> 0:10:19.272 head and in the head of all of us when 0:10:19.312 --> 0:10:21.632 we were then reading these kid orders for the first time. 0:10:22.192 --> 0:10:23.752 We knew as soon as we could see the kid 0:10:23.832 --> 0:10:25.792 orders again, we knew that it wasn't just Steven All 0:10:25.792 --> 0:10:28.152 weren't being scammed. Every single one of these users was. 0:10:28.792 --> 0:10:32.192 But we knew that Amy had been killed exactly by 0:10:32.232 --> 0:10:34.752 the person like all of these other people who were 0:10:34.832 --> 0:10:37.232 using the site trying to have someone killed, and so 0:10:37.432 --> 0:10:42.552 it was an immediate reminder about how dangerous the circumstances 0:10:42.592 --> 0:10:44.752 that each of these targets on the kill list must 0:10:44.792 --> 0:10:49.632 be in and how close possibly the people were to 0:10:49.712 --> 0:10:52.472 them in their lives, who were actually in secret or 0:10:52.632 --> 0:10:54.992 they thought trying to plan for their murder. 0:10:55.472 --> 0:10:58.752 How many people over the course of your investigation. I 0:10:58.792 --> 0:11:00.632 know Chris started to find more and more names, but 0:11:00.672 --> 0:11:02.472 how many names did you see on that list? 0:11:04.312 --> 0:11:07.912 We ended up over the years investigation disclosing one hundred 0:11:07.952 --> 0:11:10.391 and seventy five kill orders to police around the world. 0:11:11.072 --> 0:11:15.032 Each one of those was a we believe a serious 0:11:15.032 --> 0:11:17.152 threat to life in the sense that it was a 0:11:17.192 --> 0:11:22.032 person normally addressed pattern of life information, really serious sustained 0:11:22.032 --> 0:11:25.432 determination to have them killed. This wasn't someone erantly sending 0:11:25.432 --> 0:11:27.392 a single message to the site. Every single one of 0:11:27.392 --> 0:11:29.392 these cases, you know that it was very clear what 0:11:29.432 --> 0:11:33.912 the person wanted. And then also payments, So each and 0:11:33.952 --> 0:11:35.752 every single one of those one hundred and seventy five 0:11:35.832 --> 0:11:38.232 have payments attached to them. In terms of the total 0:11:38.312 --> 0:11:40.472 number names on the list, if you look at the 0:11:40.472 --> 0:11:44.312 people that didn't have payments, though, it's probably in the 0:11:44.352 --> 0:11:46.511 five hundreds, maybe even not to one thousands. 0:11:47.472 --> 0:11:48.511 That's terrifying. 0:11:48.872 --> 0:11:50.832 Yeah, it's pretty staggering. 0:11:51.232 --> 0:11:53.432 Why do they want those people killed? What were you 0:11:53.512 --> 0:11:54.671 seeing as the reasons? 0:11:55.032 --> 0:11:59.272 When I first started this, my kind of assumption was 0:11:59.912 --> 0:12:04.592 that we were going to be stepping into like organized 0:12:04.632 --> 0:12:07.752 crime of one kind or another. I was expecting to 0:12:07.832 --> 0:12:12.712 see drug deals gone wrong, like kind of feuds, kind 0:12:12.712 --> 0:12:15.552 of revenge attacks. But you know what was striking Jenba 0:12:15.672 --> 0:12:18.472 was that when we began to kind of unravel these cases, 0:12:18.512 --> 0:12:21.272 reach the people on the list, get to know them, 0:12:21.392 --> 0:12:24.712 and then ultimately get to know in the police investigations 0:12:24.792 --> 0:12:26.952 the people that were trying to put them, but that 0:12:27.032 --> 0:12:28.832 had put them there were trying to have them killed. 0:12:29.352 --> 0:12:33.072 They were normal people, like everyone was a normal person 0:12:33.112 --> 0:12:35.391 apart from someone that determined that someone else should die. 0:12:35.472 --> 0:12:38.032 I mean they were They lived normal lives. They look 0:12:38.112 --> 0:12:41.631 like you and me. They are often hiding in plain sight, 0:12:42.352 --> 0:12:47.992 and they almost always I think, were driven by some 0:12:48.112 --> 0:12:51.672 kind of desire for control. Most of the cases ended 0:12:51.752 --> 0:12:56.672 up being about coercive control within spousal relationships, So basically 0:12:56.672 --> 0:13:00.792 some kind of romantic relationship gone terribly terribly awry, either 0:13:00.832 --> 0:13:03.752 that existed or someone trying to leave it, and it 0:13:03.832 --> 0:13:07.271 was kind of in those contexts. Generally, we found these 0:13:07.352 --> 0:13:09.511 kid orders to emerge from. 0:13:09.792 --> 0:13:12.872 Am I right in saying that you saw a lot 0:13:12.872 --> 0:13:15.312 of the victims were women and it was kind of 0:13:15.872 --> 0:13:18.592 ex partners or partners that had put these hits out 0:13:18.592 --> 0:13:18.992 on them. 0:13:19.112 --> 0:13:22.032 That's right. It was somewhere between sixty to seventy percent 0:13:22.072 --> 0:13:25.752 of the targets were women. But then almost all the 0:13:25.792 --> 0:13:28.992 cases were going between genders, so it was women trying 0:13:28.992 --> 0:13:31.952 to kill men, men trying to kill women within the 0:13:31.952 --> 0:13:35.952 context of some relationship. Always, I think control was at 0:13:35.992 --> 0:13:38.712 the core of it. You know, sometimes it was romantic, 0:13:38.792 --> 0:13:43.792 sometimes the motivation seemed to be sexual or possessive. Sometimes 0:13:43.792 --> 0:13:45.672 it was to do with control of children, though it 0:13:45.712 --> 0:13:48.552 could have been an adoption conflict. And sometimes there was 0:13:48.632 --> 0:13:50.552 kind of money mixed in and around there as well, 0:13:50.592 --> 0:13:53.352 you know, a divorce with money on the table, or 0:13:53.592 --> 0:13:56.872 maybe some kind of inheritance or idea that money's been 0:13:56.912 --> 0:13:58.271 stolen from someone as well. 0:13:58.352 --> 0:14:00.672 And we're talking all over the world. This isn't just 0:14:00.992 --> 0:14:02.552 kind of in the UK, where you are. 0:14:02.832 --> 0:14:05.912 All over the world eleven countries. I think we've seen 0:14:05.952 --> 0:14:08.952 convict in now dozens of countries in terms of where 0:14:08.992 --> 0:14:12.352 we were disclosing these cases. There were cases in Australia, 0:14:12.472 --> 0:14:17.912 cases in Switzerland, lots of cases in America, Germany, the UK. 0:14:18.232 --> 0:14:22.072 I mean, it was truly a kind of global sprinkling 0:14:22.632 --> 0:14:24.312 of conspiracy to commit murder. 0:14:24.992 --> 0:14:29.152 Before we jump into you taking control of the kill list, 0:14:29.752 --> 0:14:32.832 you and Chris, separately as well, tried to go to police, 0:14:32.872 --> 0:14:34.552 didn't you. How did that go for both of you? 0:14:34.952 --> 0:14:37.632 I did what any sane person would do is their 0:14:37.632 --> 0:14:41.712 first thing when receiving these orders and reading those kinds 0:14:41.752 --> 0:14:44.112 of documents, which is I phoned the police in the 0:14:44.192 --> 0:14:48.232 UK and I was like, Hey, this is horribly serious, 0:14:48.352 --> 0:14:50.952 this is very worrying, and they came to my house 0:14:50.992 --> 0:14:53.472 the middle of COVID. I remember it actually still very vividly. 0:14:53.592 --> 0:14:57.232 It was the first time that I'd seen anyone in 0:14:57.592 --> 0:15:01.392 months face to face, and they were very young and 0:15:01.552 --> 0:15:04.512 very serious. And after they they did admit to me 0:15:04.552 --> 0:15:06.352 that one of the reasons they were there was to 0:15:06.392 --> 0:15:08.432 conduct a mental health check on me. They thought I 0:15:08.472 --> 0:15:11.432 was mad once they were convinced I wasn't, though they 0:15:11.432 --> 0:15:14.952 did take it seriously, actually, the British police. But the 0:15:14.992 --> 0:15:18.632 problem was because there weren't any British cases, they basically 0:15:19.112 --> 0:15:21.752 didn't think it was their problem, right they kind of 0:15:21.752 --> 0:15:24.552 packaged up the cases, sent them off to Winter Poll, 0:15:25.152 --> 0:15:26.272 kind of washed their hands of it. 0:15:26.392 --> 0:15:29.792 And that was that tell me about the decision to 0:15:29.912 --> 0:15:34.592 actually start contacting people on the list, because that's a 0:15:34.592 --> 0:15:37.352 big next step. You've basically taken the police work into 0:15:37.352 --> 0:15:38.232 your own hands. 0:15:38.672 --> 0:15:40.512 It's a massive next step. But I think it was. 0:15:40.632 --> 0:15:44.312 It was one of the most important and probably reluctant 0:15:44.352 --> 0:15:47.792 decisions of my life, of my career. For sure. It 0:15:47.872 --> 0:15:50.352 was somewhat born out of desperation, if I'm honors with you. 0:15:50.952 --> 0:15:54.752 So once we disclose these cases to the police, this 0:15:54.832 --> 0:15:57.792 is a somewhat technical explanation, you have to bear with me, 0:15:57.832 --> 0:16:00.792 but it's extremely important and it does kind of provide 0:16:00.792 --> 0:16:04.712 the grounding for what happens. So the British Police said, hey, 0:16:05.032 --> 0:16:07.552 we're going to send everything off to to POLL. Now, 0:16:07.552 --> 0:16:10.912 Interpol is this kind of global policing organization that tries 0:16:10.952 --> 0:16:13.032 to be the glue between all these national police forces 0:16:13.032 --> 0:16:16.312 around the world, and Interpol said, we're going to send 0:16:16.352 --> 0:16:19.112 all of these to the local police forces. Now, the 0:16:19.232 --> 0:16:23.952 problem was that going via the Metropolitan Police to Interpol 0:16:24.192 --> 0:16:27.232 to another police force around the world, they would have 0:16:27.312 --> 0:16:30.632 no idea. This receiving police force who we were, we 0:16:30.712 --> 0:16:34.152 had no idea who they were, and being discollected in 0:16:34.192 --> 0:16:36.592 that way, they could not do any kind of mental 0:16:36.632 --> 0:16:38.672 health checks on us. They would have had no idea 0:16:38.752 --> 0:16:43.112 about whether we were credible, legitimate journalists, crazy people, or 0:16:43.152 --> 0:16:46.432 anyone else, and we couldn't send them any further information. 0:16:46.952 --> 0:16:49.032 So when we later on began to work with the 0:16:49.032 --> 0:16:51.752 police on investigations, it was a very very like two 0:16:51.792 --> 0:16:54.912 way street. They'd be asking for us for explanations about 0:16:54.952 --> 0:16:57.952 the technical information about the payment, We'd be sending them 0:16:57.992 --> 0:17:01.232 updates on the orders. We'd be doing all kinds of things, 0:17:01.272 --> 0:17:04.192 and we were just convinced that going via Interpol, none 0:17:04.192 --> 0:17:07.032 of that was likely to happen. And so the only 0:17:07.071 --> 0:17:09.272 thing that we then thought we could do was to 0:17:09.311 --> 0:17:11.512 begin to reach out to the people on the list, 0:17:12.111 --> 0:17:15.591 warn them directly they're in danger, and then work with 0:17:15.631 --> 0:17:17.511 them in whatever way they wanted to go to the 0:17:17.552 --> 0:17:21.111 local police, go to the national police, do whatever in 0:17:21.232 --> 0:17:24.471 order to try and precipitate a law enforcement investigation with 0:17:24.512 --> 0:17:26.192 them in the middle of it, which. 0:17:26.032 --> 0:17:29.591 Is easier said than done, because how do you do that. 0:17:29.952 --> 0:17:31.751 You kind of jump on the phone and what do 0:17:31.792 --> 0:17:35.311 you say Hi, I'm Carl, I'm a journo, as someone 0:17:35.351 --> 0:17:36.032 wants to kill you. 0:17:36.671 --> 0:17:38.871 How did it go exactly? And they just slam the 0:17:38.911 --> 0:17:42.591 phone down. I think it was a mixture of me 0:17:43.272 --> 0:17:47.431 stepping into all of this somewhat naively thinking that my 0:17:47.591 --> 0:17:51.071 kind of good meaning, kind of jawn T Foe like 0:17:51.192 --> 0:17:53.311 voice on the end of the phone was somehow going 0:17:53.351 --> 0:17:56.472 to convince these people that I wasn't a scammer, and 0:17:56.792 --> 0:18:01.591 that was overwhelmingly not the case. The story is so ridiculous. 0:18:01.712 --> 0:18:03.951 I mean I actually to this day believe the story 0:18:03.992 --> 0:18:07.311 is so ridiculous. No self respecting scammer would ever would 0:18:07.311 --> 0:18:09.752 ever choose something so unbelievable. I think they would go 0:18:09.792 --> 0:18:12.071 for something far more kind of likely sounding than all 0:18:12.111 --> 0:18:15.952 of that. The other problem, though, was as we began 0:18:15.992 --> 0:18:20.071 to tackle this kind of challenge of reaching people, one 0:18:20.111 --> 0:18:23.672 of the things that I was terrified of was that 0:18:23.752 --> 0:18:25.951 the person that had put them on the kill list 0:18:26.351 --> 0:18:28.831 would be literally stood right next to them as I 0:18:28.952 --> 0:18:32.032 was making the call. Right We remember the Stephen or one. 0:18:32.071 --> 0:18:34.071 He was in the house with Amy, He was there 0:18:34.071 --> 0:18:36.551 when the police warned her. We thought that was going 0:18:36.591 --> 0:18:38.191 to be the case again and again there would be 0:18:38.192 --> 0:18:40.751 there were going to be people very close to the targets. 0:18:40.792 --> 0:18:43.831 The targets might be completely unawares. What kept me up 0:18:43.831 --> 0:18:46.032 at night at that point was being worried that my 0:18:46.111 --> 0:18:49.311 phone call might actually precipitate a murder. You know, they 0:18:49.591 --> 0:18:52.951 would listen to my warning, they would realize that their 0:18:53.032 --> 0:18:56.111 kind of window of opportunity was closing, and they would 0:18:56.151 --> 0:18:58.511 act in that moment, or they'd act. They'd act as 0:18:58.552 --> 0:19:01.991 soon as they felt they could. So the calls are 0:19:02.071 --> 0:19:05.392 quite angular. I'd worked with this kind of psychologist. We'd 0:19:05.431 --> 0:19:08.272 thought a lot about it internally, we'd kind of designed 0:19:08.351 --> 0:19:12.512 this approach where I was. I came on the phone 0:19:12.552 --> 0:19:16.111 line and I was like, hey, we're these journalists doing 0:19:16.111 --> 0:19:20.031 this kind of investigation into scam sites. Probably not actually 0:19:20.071 --> 0:19:22.792 helpful to mention scam sites in the context of the 0:19:23.431 --> 0:19:25.671 concerns around me being a scammer, but that's what we 0:19:25.752 --> 0:19:29.552 decided to do. The idea didn't work, but the idea 0:19:29.591 --> 0:19:33.471 was that we were trying to arrange a separate follow 0:19:33.512 --> 0:19:36.911 on call for them at some time whenever they wanted to, 0:19:37.151 --> 0:19:40.752 wherever they felt safe and alone. That's what we were 0:19:40.752 --> 0:19:42.711 trying to do. So I could and I thought that 0:19:42.752 --> 0:19:44.592 was the only way we could really deliver that safely, 0:19:44.671 --> 0:19:45.871 the warning safely to them. 0:19:46.431 --> 0:19:48.472 But you can understand, you know, someone on the other 0:19:48.512 --> 0:19:50.992 side of the phone being like, I don't know what's 0:19:51.071 --> 0:19:53.071 going on. It's probably easier for me to just ignore 0:19:53.071 --> 0:19:55.071 this call as even happening. So you didn't have a 0:19:55.111 --> 0:19:56.952 lot of luck when you were on the phone call, 0:19:57.792 --> 0:19:59.672 so you decided to track down these people in real 0:19:59.671 --> 0:20:03.191 life instead. But remembering it's twenty twenty, pretty much the 0:20:03.232 --> 0:20:05.751 whole world is in lockdown, so it's not like you 0:20:05.752 --> 0:20:08.871 can just jump on a plane. How did you go 0:20:09.032 --> 0:20:12.752 about recruiting people in the countries to track down these 0:20:12.752 --> 0:20:13.711 people in real life? 0:20:14.992 --> 0:20:17.111 Yeah? I mean I don't think I was legally allowed 0:20:17.151 --> 0:20:19.752 to leave my flat at that point, let alone jump 0:20:19.792 --> 0:20:22.792 on a plane. Yeah. It was just the worst circumstances 0:20:22.871 --> 0:20:27.631 to be trying to do an international investigation requiring face 0:20:27.631 --> 0:20:30.711 to face contact. I can't think of any other circumstances 0:20:30.752 --> 0:20:33.352 full of less privy to that. So we reached out, 0:20:33.391 --> 0:20:37.431 like there's all these brilliant journalist networks that exist around 0:20:37.472 --> 0:20:39.552 the world for journalists to reach other journalists. That in 0:20:39.552 --> 0:20:42.272 fact actually wasn't the problem. We could kind of reach 0:20:42.431 --> 0:20:45.471 these there's all these websites where you can hire stringers 0:20:45.512 --> 0:20:47.591 and you can hire fixers, and you can hire people 0:20:47.591 --> 0:20:50.391 on the ground, and we quite quickly found that we 0:20:50.431 --> 0:20:55.232 could reach kind of predominantly young journalists in these areas 0:20:55.272 --> 0:20:58.032 that were willing to go out and actually try and 0:20:58.151 --> 0:21:00.911 reach these people for us. And the idea was to 0:21:00.992 --> 0:21:03.911 kind of on board them, so to speak, onto an investigation, 0:21:04.071 --> 0:21:07.951 explain to them what happened, see their kind of mounting 0:21:08.871 --> 0:21:12.472 horror and surprise as we kind of laid out the investigation, 0:21:13.071 --> 0:21:15.311 and then work with them to basically on a case 0:21:15.351 --> 0:21:18.632 by case basis, like design the approach like which quite 0:21:18.671 --> 0:21:21.552 often meant they would be driving past the house for 0:21:21.712 --> 0:21:24.111