WEBVTT - Inside a Multinational Cyber Weapons Deal That Went Bust 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.199 Don't let your legacy I T systems cost you money, 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:06.320 innovation and a place at the digital table of the future. 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:09.280 You can change your systems and the economics of it 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:13.720 with software from red hat. See how at red hat 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:34.640 dot com. It's August and Christian Provisionado is in Savona, Italy, 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:37.159 on the beach with his girlfriend when he gets a 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:40.559 call from his boss. Christian worked as a bodyguard for 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:44.040 a security company in Milan. He's got this honor and 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:48.480 Loyalty tattoo on his biceps. He wears these dark sunglasses. 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.440 He's a burly guy in a little bit intimidating. He 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:55.800 worked mostly society events in Italy, like Georgia Armani's fort 0:00:56.040 --> 0:01:00.720 anniversary party. This particular job was a little different. His 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:04.040 boss needed him to fly to Mauritania in West Africa. 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:07.000 He was told to bring a dark suit and accompany 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:10.119 someone to a meeting with the government there. His boss 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:14.240 made it sound like it was an emergency. My brother, uh, 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:19.520 you don't see any danger, is saying, okay, I haven't 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:24.760 two good name just for a presentation. That's Mauricio Provisionado. 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.920 He's Christians brother. We just do the demo in thought 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:34.800 of the Mauritanian development and it seemed like a easy job. 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:42.800 It turned out that this wasn't an easy job at all. 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:47.640 Christian was arrested by the Mauritanian government, imprisoned and held 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:51.120 hostage there and he's still there. What was supposed to 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:54.520 be a one week assignment has turned into a sixteen 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:59.360 month nightmare, all because he unknowingly walked into a cyber 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:11.320 weapons right as it was going bad. Hi, I'm Akito 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:15.440 on Jordan Robertson, and this week on Decrypted, we're taking 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:19.160 you deep into the underworld of cyber crime. This is 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:23.000 a world of offshore bank accounts and meetings that never happened, 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:26.840 a world where governments and organizations a huge sums of 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:30.040 money to spy on each other and on their own people. 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:34.080 As we spend more of our lives on our digital devices, 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:41.440 the market for these cyber weapons is exploding. But first, 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:44.720 let's explain why Christian went to Mauritania in the first 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:47.720 place and the deal that he was supposed to be closing. 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.320 For that, I need to introduce you to Maniche Kumar. 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:55.760 Maniche is an up and coming entrepreneur in the cyber 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:59.440 arms dealing world. But he came from humble beginning. He 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.120 watched you to videos to teach himself how to code 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:05.799 in a rural village in northern India. Yes, so let's 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:10.160 talk about this market for cyber weapons. It sounds scary 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:14.520 and it is. You're selling the ability to take advantage 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:18.160 of someone someone's software or phone or hardware that that's 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:21.359 that's being targeted. And um, having the ability to is 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:24.040 very advantageous to lots of individuals. So um, there's a 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.120 lot of money involved for sure to be able to 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:29.280 purchase in and use these things. That's Andrew Blake, who's 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:32.680 a researcher at Lookout, which is a company that specializes 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:35.720 in mobile security. We had him come into our San 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:38.840 Francisco studio to walk us through how this market works 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:42.200 and some of the more technical details of our story 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:44.480 today that we're going to be getting into a little 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:47.320 bit later. And when he said that there's a lot 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:50.600 of money at stake, he means a lot of money. 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:57.440 Researchers estimate that this market is worth billions of dollars. Okay, 0:03:57.480 --> 0:03:59.680 so back to the niche. He's made a bit of 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:02.080 a name for himself in this world. He wrote a 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:04.920 book called The Secret of hacking that got the attention 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:08.320 of the Indian government. They asked me Niche to use 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:12.400 his hacking skills to crack into China's secret operating system, 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:15.600 a computer network they were using to spy on countries 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:19.880 like India. But Maniche is really entrepreneurial. He wanted to 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:21.919 be more than just the guy who does odd hacking 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:24.640 jobs for the Indian government. He realized that the market 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:28.440 for selling offensive technology, as in the technology that a 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:31.479 government could use to launch an attack, breaking into a 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:35.280 network or spy on another country. Yeah, that market is 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:39.640 much bigger. This kind of technology that Meniche was selling. 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.279 People call it all kinds of things like cyber arms, 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:47.520 cyber weapons, exploits attacks. What you need to know is 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:52.880 that these are tools to hack and spy on other people. Now, 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:55.480 Maniche wouldn't talk to us on the record for this episode, 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:59.400 and I think you will understand why pretty shortly. But 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:02.440 I did go to India to meet him for some reason. 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.520 He let me a reporter check out the spots where 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:07.640 he used to meet his clients and learn about how 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:17.240 he built his business. Menisia's tall was slicked back here. 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:19.800 He's handsome like he could have ended up on a 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:22.919 Bollywood set if he had made different life choices. And 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:26.280 his company, Wolf Intelligence, which is based in Munich, looks 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.640 pretty good too. They have an office in Dubai, another 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:33.960 in Romania, a Swiss CEO, and booths at every major 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:37.440 military technology conference around the world. Yeah, these are all 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:42.760 the trappings of a respectable boutique surveillance company. But when 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:45.440 you meet Monichian person, it doesn't take along to realize 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:47.760 only part of the image is real and part is 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:50.560 for show. He's still learning about this world of enemy 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.359 hunting spy technology. Yeah, like how to be in the 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:57.560 room when the really big deals go down. So back 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:02.200 in December, Maniche lies to Doha, Qatar and sets up 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:05.360 a booth at an industry fair called Millipole Qatar held 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:08.760 at the Doha Convention Center. I'm reading its website here 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:13.000 that says it's the leading international exhibition dedicated to homeland 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:16.080 security in the Middle East, and it's held under the 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.640 authority of the Prime Minister of Qatar. So it's not 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:22.720 like they're meeting in a dark back alleyway, right, it's 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:27.359 actually a perfectly legitimate conference. Yeah. Absolutely, Imagine the sixty 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:30.600 five thousand square foot convention center with buyers from more 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:34.440 than sixty countries checking out armored vehicles, machine guns, and 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:38.479 surveillance systems. It's there that Maniche makes the deal of 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:42.400 a lifetime. So he manages to pique the interest of 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:45.640 a couple of government officials from the small African state 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:49.920 of Mauritania. Miniche gives them a more detailed demo. Within 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:53.559 a month, Mauritanias signs a two point five million dollar 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:57.400 contract with Maniche. He'll get paid in installments. This is 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.280 certainly the biggest splash in his short career as a 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:03.919 cyber arms dealer now, but it's very nature. The cyber 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:08.840 arms market operates under what economists politely call a trust deficit. 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:12.320 That means that because everyone's trying so hard to cover 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:15.880 their tracks, it's basically impossible to know who you're dealing with, 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:20.880 whether your business partner is a thief, a scammer, or 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:27.640 something more dangerous. If you're going through kind of the 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:30.000 backdoor channels and the black markets and things like that, 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:31.880 it's a little bit of the wild West, right You're 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:33.880 you're selling these things out there, Um, you don't know 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:36.360 who you're selling them to, really, so you mean you 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:38.080 might be selling them someone that's trying to set you up. 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:39.560 You might be selling them someone that wants to use 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:41.840 them moliciously. You might be selling them to someone that 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:44.800 just wants to get them and use them for research purposes. 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:51.080 As these things go, Mauritaneous was pretty close to the 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.080 bottom of the shark tank as a population of only 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:58.320 four million people, and it's had ten coups since sixty 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:02.160 when it gained independence. It's one of the last places 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:06.160 on Earth where slavery still exists, and the government is 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:10.680 regularly condemned for human rights abuses. But Maniche is a 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:13.120 hired gun and there's a lot of money on the 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:16.880 line and deals like these, and he's not particularly bothered 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:20.080 by that. The way Moniche views the world is if 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:24.360 he doesn't make these deals, someone else will. But right 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:27.880 now he's trying to fix a more immediate problem, which 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:30.000 is that as part of the whole two point five 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:34.240 million dollar package, monichha agreed to deliver the Mauritanians a 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:40.880 piece of technology that he actually doesn't have. What exactly 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:44.480 that technology is that's coming up, But first a word 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:49.120 from our sponsor. Inside the most successful organizations, i T 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:52.839 has gone from supporting the business to driving the business, 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:56.880 but the costs of legacy infrastructure can impede this progress. 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:00.640 Budgets can't stretch enough to pay for digital ovation at 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:04.200 the speed required. No one gets a blank check. The 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:06.520 answer is to change the economics of your I T 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:11.800 by shifting from ownership to use, from licenses to subscriptions, 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:16.240 from proprietary to open. Change the economics of it with 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:20.120 open software from red hat. Learn more at red hat 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:29.600 dot com. Okay, so, before the break, Miniche had managed 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:33.000 to close a two point five million dollar deal with 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:36.760 the Mauritanian government, and included in the deal was a 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:41.200 piece of highly sophisticated surveillance software. And Jordan's until you 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:43.320 brought the story to me, I didn't even know that 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:46.480 this thing existed. Yeah, I didn't know much about it either. 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:50.840 It's called a silent SMS attack. When you want to 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.760 essentially hack into someone's phone, you need them to execute 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:56.120 like a piece of software on their device to take 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:59.079 advantage of the vulnerabilities and install the malicious software on 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.680 the device. Now, how you actually get the user to 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:05.280 exploit their phone is a number of different ways. You know, 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:07.880 in the past, there's things like you can install malicious 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.480 application that will take advantage and break the sandbox and 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:14.440 break the security features of the device, but that requires 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:16.720 and tricking the user into installing them. Let's just app 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:20.240 through efficient campaign or something like that. So what Andrew 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:23.440 is describing here, these are those emails that are like, 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:26.720 you know, click on this link to win ten million 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:30.320 dollars right now. Exactly, you as the user, need to 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:33.200 click on a link that triggers a whole process that 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:35.840 allows the hacker to take control of your phone. But 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:43.760 there's also another way. In phone carriers like Verizon and 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:47.280 a T n T often sent invisible text messages to 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:51.079 their customers to get them to update their software. It 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:54.280 says if they have a backdoor into your phone, because you, 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:56.840 the owner of the phone, don't have to click on 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:01.720 or download or open anything, it's just happens automatically. And 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:07.240 because it happens in total stealth, it's called a silent SMS. Now, 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:10.760 as you can imagine, this pathway is usually guarded with 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:15.000 tons and tons of security walls. But if a hacker 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:18.280 manages to find a security hole that allows them that 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:21.920 secret access to anyone's phone, it's the holy grail for 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:26.320 hackers because like all of our lives are now on 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.480 our phones in this case right, all of our information, banking, 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:32.160 personal all on one single device for us now that 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:35.000 they become these highly valuable targets because everything is in 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:37.360 one spot now for us to access. Even the way 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:39.320 in which we log into our systems are two factor 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:42.480 tokens and things like that are all all located on 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:45.880 our phone device. So having the ability to get in 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:50.840 quickly and silently is very advantageous for these kinds of 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.160 targeted attacks that are out there. Once they have their 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:55.160 software on there and they've you know, they've taken advantage 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:57.320 of it, they can do whatever they want. They basically 0:11:57.320 --> 0:11:59.600 have a backdoor inteier device to do to do anything. 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:08.160 So this is really powerful stuff, something only maybe a 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:12.920 handful of very sophisticated players can pull off. And this 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:15.360 is the technology Meniche needs to get his hands on, 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:19.080 so he flies to Israel, the beating heart of cyber warfare. 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:23.040 Through a network of connections, Minich is told that someone 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:27.040 called Duty Sternberg, a cyber weapons broker, might have what 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:33.679 he's looking for, and Maniche goes to Duty's leather appointed 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:37.840 offices in a high rise inside Tel Aviv to get 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.760 into Duty's office, Miniche has to go through a branch 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.720 of a local bank with metal detectors set up at 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:47.360 the door. Menich is very impressed. Dot he wants a 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:50.880 million dollars for this piece of software, and he wants 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:54.599 a big part of that cash upfront. Now, this is 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:58.800 a real dilemma for Meniche. In this murky world of cyberweapons, 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:03.160 the normal rule of business they don't apply. Yes, someone 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:06.280 violates the terms of a contract if they don't pay 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:09.679 or if they don't deliver, it's not like you can 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:12.600 just go see them right. There's nobody enforcing the law. 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.600 And the problem here is manichees starting to suspect that 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:20.120 the Mauritanian government is probably never going to pay him 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:23.600 the final one million dollars of his contract. And at 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.839 the same time, Maniche isn't sure if he can trust Duty, 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:30.880 the Israeli broker, to deliver a real silent SMS exploit. 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:35.000 So there's a very real risk here that Maniche would 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:38.480 end up with basically no profit if he pays Duty. 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:43.640 But Mauritania doesn't pay him, So Maniche decides to buy time. 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:46.960 He doesn't give Duty the down payment, which means he 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:52.000 never gets the silent SMS. In the meantime, in Mauritania, 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:56.520 government officials are getting antsie. They've paid one point five 0:13:56.640 --> 0:14:00.959 million dollars to Miniche, but they haven't received most important 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:03.680 part of the software that they were promised. And there 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:07.080 was an Indian technician Miniche had sent to Mauritania to 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.360 help the government use the software that Miniche had delivered 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:13.720 to them so far. But as soon as the technician 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:18.800 arrived in Mauritania, the government confiscated that technicians passport, took 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:22.120 the technician as hostage and Miniche had to find a 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:27.120 way to get the guy out. At this point, Meniche 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:30.360 is wondering maybe he can convince them to accept a 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:34.360 package without the silent SMS. Maybe they'll take a discount 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:37.640 and to set up another meeting with the Mauritanian government, 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:41.560 Miniche decides he wants a white European guy with his 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:44.080 staff to do it now. The reason for this is 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:48.080 Manich is very concerned about being discriminated against because of 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:52.640 his ethnicity, so his plan is to get white Europeans 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:56.040 to accompany him and his staff on important meetings to 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:59.800 add what he views is additional legitimacy to his company. 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:04.600 That's when Christian previous Yonnado, our Italian bodyguard comes in 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:11.600 Minisia had worked with Christians boss in the past, so 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:14.480 Christians boss called Christian and asked him to fly out 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:21.080 to Mauritania immediately. My brother has not time to check 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:25.720 to investigate, because normally when you receive an offer job offer, 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:28.920 you know you have to prepare and you have to 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:34.520 study everything. But they wish so hard my brother. They say, oh, 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:38.440 it is an emergency, you have to fly tomorrow morning, 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:43.600 so Pizza don't give the time to my brother to 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:48.600 check to what's really is going on the place alone. 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:57.480 So this is really a trap and things got weird 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.360 right away as soon as Christian arrived and more at NA, 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:03.080 a man with no teeth meets him at the airport 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:06.760 and takes his passport away. Christian was told this was 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:09.320 just standard procedure, something he needs to do to get 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:12.160 a visa, but then he doesn't get the passport back. 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:15.640 And when Christian arrived at the apartment that Miniche had 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:19.880 prepared for him, there's another Italian there called Leo Ratano 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:22.520 who's about to leave after staying for a week there, 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:28.600 and he warns Christian that there's something fishy going on. Now, 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:31.360 Remember Christian doesn't know any of the background at this 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:33.920 point that we've been telling you today that he had 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:36.120 walked into the middle of a high stakes deal that's 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:39.520 disintegrating by the day. And after he hangs around for 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:43.000 a week, Miniche calls off the meeting. He just can't 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:45.800 come up with a solution and he simply runs out 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:49.240 of time, at which point Christian's boss starts to send 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:53.120 him a frenzied series of WhatsApp messages. He tells Christian 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:56.560 to leave the apartment that Miniche's company provided to move 0:16:56.600 --> 0:17:00.440 to commercially run hotel, to try the German embassy because 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:05.120 there's no Italian embassy there. Then, on September one, two 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:10.159 weeks after he arrived in Mauritania, Christian disappeared. His boss, 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:18.640 his girlfriend, his brother, they all lost contact with him. 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:22.920 You Know, the first twenty four hour, you think, Okay, 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:28.080 say come because maybe there is UH some problem with 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:34.160 the network, with the communication, you know, the UH Middle Africa, 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:39.280 so maybe sometimes it can happen that. But after the 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:45.200 second day I start to understand that that, yeah, maybe 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:53.240 some problem h was ongoing. On third September, I received 0:17:53.280 --> 0:18:01.080 a call from the Italian Council in Morocco to tell 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:05.960 me that my brother was arrested from the Malitanian government. 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:12.760 That's Maritio Provisionado. Christians brother. Christian was charged with defrauding 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:16.960 the Mauritanian state and money laundring. His family was allowed 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:19.240 to visit him a couple of times, and his brother 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:21.399 was shocked to find out the conditions that Christian was 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:24.879 held in for the first few months. I had the 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:30.159 possibility to spoke with him. He say, the condition was 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:38.040 really bad. Was a room really dirty, the bed was 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:44.760 really bad. And another point is for six months he 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:51.840 they did to him just rise and water, rise and 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:56.560 water and nothing else. So the problem is my brother 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:02.600 is Gabeti and for a toabatic person, uh, the rise 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:06.760 it's like a poison. So my brother, in this moment 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.920 is still alive. But it's a miracle and the fight 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:13.639 to get Christian back has turned into this international affair. 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:17.639 Top level diplomats from Italy and Mauritania met on the 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:21.200 sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September and multiple 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:24.679 other meetings after that. Now that the two governments are 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:28.359 in talks, Christian's brother says he's held in better conditions, 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:38.080 but Mauritaneous simply won't let him go. Well, in Jordan's 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.840 we are tired. We are really tired, because it's a 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:49.439 sixixteen months that we fight every day to found the 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:55.080 two to try to to understand what has happened there. 0:19:55.960 --> 0:20:00.800 We tried to involve all journalist in Ita, but the 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:06.880 nine of the media and the journalists in Italy, they 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:15.800 don't want to talk about this study. Mauritania says that 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:19.000 the released Christian if they get their one point five 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:23.080 million dollars back, and there's been some speculation in Italy 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:26.919 that the government might pay the money. As for mi Niche, 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:30.520 he's still trying to get Christian back to but he's 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:32.879 unwilling to give back the one point five million that 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:36.439 Mauritania has already paid him. And even though Mauritania is 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:39.080 demanding that he come back to resolve the disputing person 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:43.400 after seeing what happened to Christian, Maniche won't return himself. 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:47.359 In October, Minis tried to set up a meeting at 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:51.720 a neutral location outside of Mauritania, but the government official 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:56.720 never showed and in the meantime, Minie says that he's 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:00.800 been busy building his own company. Business has been booming. 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:04.960 Mini said he just landed a five hundred thousand dollar 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:20.960 deal with the Egyptian government. And that's it for this 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:24.159 week's Decrypted. Thanks for listening. We'd love to know what 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:26.120 you thought of this show. You can send a voice 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:29.919 message to our producer Pia at p G A D 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:34.560 K A r I at Bloomberg dot net, or write 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:37.960 to me on Twitter. I'm at Jordan's are one thousand 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:41.440 and I'm at aki itso seven. Be sure to subscribe 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:44.280 to Decrypted on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:46.399 and please leave us a rating and a review. It 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:49.600 helps more listeners find our show. This episode was produced 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:53.600 by Pierre get Kari Magnus, Henrickson and Liz Smith. Jim 0:21:53.600 --> 0:21:57.440 Ailey edited Jordan's accompanying Business Week story, which you can 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:01.200 find at Bloomberg dot com slash business Week and Bloomberg 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:05.360 dot com slash Tech. Alec McCabe is head of Bloomberg Podcasts. 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:12.960 We'll see you next week. Don't let your legacy I 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:16.439 systems cost you money, innovation and a place at the 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:19.760 digital table of the future. You can change your systems 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:23.240 and the economics of it with software from red Hat. 0:22:23.640 --> 0:22:26.600 See how at red hat dot com.