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Speaker 1: Pushkin Just a quick note before we start today's show.

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Speaker 2: Previously on Hot Money, we discovered how do You Bui

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Speaker 2: became the perfect place for the supercartel to come together.

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Speaker 2: This time, I want to take you back to Dublin

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Speaker 2: to Lower Baggert Street. It's a smart neighborhood close to

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Speaker 2: the city center, filled with Grand Georgian houses. It's April

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Speaker 2: twenty sixteen and Irish detectives have received a tip off

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Speaker 2: one of the apartments on the street is a Kinahan

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Speaker 2: Hotel safe house. But when they get there they find

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Speaker 2: someone else. A guy with a big belly speaking broken English.

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Speaker 2: He's got some designer shoes, a bunch of fancy watches

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Speaker 2: and several IDs, each with a different name.

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Speaker 3: You know, here's this guy who had a number of identities.

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Speaker 2: Shamus Boland, chief superintendent in the Irish Police.

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Speaker 3: He was arrested for a possession of false documents and

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Speaker 3: there was no certainty about his identity at all. It's

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Speaker 3: following his arrest and US issuing an assistance request across

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Speaker 3: Europe that within a number of errors, the Dutch police

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Speaker 3: were in touch with US and they identified him from

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Speaker 3: the fort of graphs on fingerprints and senior Dutch police

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Speaker 3: officers bordered a plane immediately and flew to Dublin.

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Speaker 2: The Dutch police scrambled to get to island because the

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Speaker 2: man they find in the flat is a murder broker

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Speaker 2: who's a top enforcer for members of the Supercartel. He's

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Speaker 2: the one who police suspect arranged the murder we heard

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Speaker 2: about in episode one, a contract killing taken out on

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Speaker 2: a man hiding from the Iranian regime and living undercover

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Speaker 2: in our mayor ali Ma Thummad. When I heard about this,

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Speaker 2: I first started to see what ali Ma Thummad's death

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Speaker 2: might reveal about the transformation of international organized crime, because

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Speaker 2: it raised a big question, how did a Dutch criminal

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Speaker 2: working with a cocaine supercartel get mixed up in a

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Speaker 2: murder that seems to have been ordered by Iran. At

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Speaker 2: this stage, no one can prove the link to Iran.

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Speaker 2: We still don't know who gave the murder broker his orders.

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Speaker 2: There's no smoking gun, but something is quietly happening in

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Speaker 2: a high tech unit of the Dutch police that's about

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Speaker 2: to blow the case wide open. It's the start of

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Speaker 2: something huge, a breakthrough that will make the global criminal

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Speaker 2: underworld shudder. I'm Miles Johnson and this is Hot Money

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Speaker 2: the New Narcos episode five Nerds Versus Narcos. Last time,

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Speaker 2: we heard about how the supercartel are ramping up their

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Speaker 2: operations from Dubai. European police can't touch them there, and

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Speaker 2: their huge criminal operations back home are booming in the Netherlands.

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Speaker 2: The ripples have started to reach Paul Veroks.

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Speaker 4: The first five weeks, I didn't tell anyone. I didn't

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Speaker 4: even tell my girlfriend. I was trying to get the

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Speaker 4: heat away.

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Speaker 2: Remember Paul, he's the crime reporter with the leather jacket

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Speaker 2: and the gold hoop hearing, the guy who likes to

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Speaker 2: meet with gangsters in public places like bars and coffee shops.

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Speaker 2: It's Paul who broke the news that the electrician killed

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Speaker 2: an al Mayor was actually a man on the run

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Speaker 2: from the Iranian regime. But one day, Paul gets a

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Speaker 2: different kind of tip from a source, and this one's

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Speaker 2: about him. He hears the group of criminals started to

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Speaker 2: talk about him. They think he's got information, information that

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Speaker 2: links them to several recent gangland killings, so.

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Speaker 4: They decided to have me assassinated so that my information

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Speaker 4: could not reach the news or the police.

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Speaker 2: I was pretty stunned when I found out about the

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Speaker 2: threats to Paul's life. I've worked in Italy and I've

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Speaker 2: written about the Italian mafia, and I've spent time with

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Speaker 2: state prosecutors living under police protection and reporters who fear

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Speaker 2: for their lives. But a reporter hasn't been killed in

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Speaker 2: Italy for many years, and neither has a judge. Now,

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Speaker 2: in the Netherlands, one of the richest and most politically

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Speaker 2: stable countries in the world, organized crimes seem to be

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Speaker 2: out of control. More and more murders were happening as

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Speaker 2: the top kingpins tightened their grip on the drugs market

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Speaker 2: and Paul's reporting on it, it landed a target on

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Speaker 2: his back. At first, he doesn't tell anyone. He just

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Speaker 2: keeps trying to figure out what's.

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Speaker 4: Going on day by day, week by week. The source

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Speaker 4: it provided new information.

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Speaker 2: So Paul's able to keep safe for now, but there's

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Speaker 2: a limit to how long he can go on like this.

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Speaker 4: I didn't talk to the police about it, and.

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Speaker 2: He faces a dilemma. If he tells the police, he

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Speaker 2: knows he won't be able to do his work. Understandably,

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Speaker 2: criminals aren't so keen on meeting a reporter with a

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Speaker 2: police escort.

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Speaker 4: As a journalist, I needed to stay in the It's

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Speaker 4: one of my weapons.

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Speaker 2: But he chooses to make a bold move. He reaches

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Speaker 2: out to the criminals directly, the ones who are after him.

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Speaker 2: He sends them a message through an intermediary and tells

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Speaker 2: them he knows about the threats.

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Speaker 4: That's the same the police will do if they know

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Speaker 4: about a plan to kill someone, they'll go to the

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Speaker 4: guys involved and ring the door and tell them we

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Speaker 4: know what you're up to, don't.

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Speaker 2: It's not long before Dutch law enforcement also finds out

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Speaker 2: about the threats and one of Paul's police contacts calls

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Speaker 2: them up.

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Speaker 4: He told the ball a very bad information, but we

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Speaker 4: need to meet now. So I told him, let's go

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Speaker 4: to my house. I'll arrange some coffee and cookies, and

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Speaker 4: then we'll be having an uncomfortable discussion because you are

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Speaker 4: not going to tell me what you know, Indie Deil,

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Speaker 4: and I won't tell you what I know, Indie deal pulling.

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Speaker 2: The policemen sit down and have a chat over coffee

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Speaker 2: and cookies, which is possibly the most dartrous repond you

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Speaker 2: can imagine to any situation. And it quickly becomes clear

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Speaker 2: their information matches.

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Speaker 4: Up, and then all kinds of a lot of people

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Speaker 4: from the government got involved.

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Speaker 2: He tries to keep working, but it becomes clear that

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Speaker 2: the people who are after him they haven't given up.

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Speaker 4: And then one day it was clear that if we

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Speaker 4: wouldn't leave now, we would not be safe anymore.

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Speaker 2: Pauland's govern now race to pack their bags because they've

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Speaker 2: been told they have to move to a safe house, a.

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Speaker 4: Very luxurious place, much more luxury is than our normal apartment.

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Speaker 4: And I was transported like the king, quite literally, because

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Speaker 4: the same organization that secured me secures the king. So

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Speaker 4: I was in a luxury but it was like a

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Speaker 4: golden cage because I couldn't get out. I couldn't get

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Speaker 4: anywhere without a group of people, well trained, well armed

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Speaker 4: people around me. That's a weird way to live and

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Speaker 4: a weird way to do your job. But they made

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Speaker 4: it possible for me to work. There hasn't been one

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Speaker 4: day I've not been working because of this.

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Speaker 2: And it's not just the threats against Paul. Really crazy

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Speaker 2: things start to happen. Criminals fire a rocket launcher the

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Speaker 2: offices of a Dutch magazine that's been running stories about

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Speaker 2: drugs traffickers. No one is hurt, but the message is

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Speaker 2: very clear journalists and how fair game? And if you

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Speaker 2: choose to report on us, you're choosing to put your

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Speaker 2: life in danger. It's sort of like Paul and his

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Speaker 2: colleagues aren't just crime journalists anymore. They're on the front

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Speaker 2: line covering a full blown attack on Dutch society and

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Speaker 2: the men behind it all. They aren't even in the Netherlands.

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Speaker 2: They're in Dubai, living the high life and far out

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Speaker 2: of the reach of law enforcement. But police are about

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Speaker 2: to make a breakthrough that will change everything.

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Speaker 5: I really got enthusiastic on that day hearing the panic.

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Speaker 2: Take a moment to imagine someone who strikes terror into

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Speaker 2: the hearts of the world's most murderous criminals, and I

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Speaker 2: can guarantee you're not picturing Martin. Engbert. Martin's slight and

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Speaker 2: softly spoken, thoughtful. He has a bit of the air

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Speaker 2: of a tech guy as Silicon Valley blue sky thinker

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Speaker 2: in a Steve jobstyle black turtleneck. Martin is the Dutch

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Speaker 2: public prosecutor for high tech crime in twenty seventeen. He

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Speaker 2: and his team are working on a secret project, one

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Speaker 2: that will turn him into a sort of nerdy batman.

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Speaker 2: It all starts when Dutch beliefs notice a new gadget

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Speaker 2: showing up on the bodies of murdered gang members. They

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Speaker 2: all seem to be carrying a particular and peculiar type

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Speaker 2: of cell phone.

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Speaker 5: They don't have a camera, the camera has removed. They

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Speaker 5: don't have a microphone. The microphone is removed.

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Speaker 2: These phones are useless for calls and they're only good

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Speaker 2: for messaging. And the phone service runs through specialized companies

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Speaker 2: that offer a particular promise to their clients.

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Speaker 5: They advertise police cannot break the encryption on the phones.

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Speaker 2: Back in the days before encrypted messages, the criminals were smart,

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Speaker 2: they would meet face to face, and if they were stupid,

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Speaker 2: they speak on the phone.

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Speaker 5: Now, I don't want to say famous, but we are

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Speaker 5: well known for wired tepping. But the organized crime groups

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Speaker 5: know that, so the organized crime groups in the Netherlands

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Speaker 5: they don't talk about anything on the phone themselves anymore.

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Speaker 2: Technology disrupts every business sector, and drug trafficking is no different.

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Speaker 2: These cryptophones transformed the way people run organized crime groups.

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Speaker 2: You don't need to be in the same city anymore

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Speaker 2: to send an order to an underling. You don't even

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Speaker 2: need to be in the same country. You can now

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Speaker 2: run a vast and complex drug trafficking empire from Dubai

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Speaker 2: without ever getting your hands dirty. You can connect with suppliers,

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Speaker 2: you can manage your finances, and most importantly, you can

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Speaker 2: order murders and the police have almost no way of

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Speaker 2: seeing what you're up to. Martin and his colleagues are

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Speaker 2: determined to figure out a way to crack these phones,

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Speaker 2: but they're sort of stuck in illegal Catch twenty two.

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Speaker 2: Martin is certain that the phones are being used by

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Speaker 2: organized criminals, but he can't prove it without access to

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Speaker 2: the messages, and to get access he needs proof that

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Speaker 2: they really are being used for crime. So he comes

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Speaker 2: up with a solution. Don't go after the criminals, go

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Speaker 2: after the phone company. Most of the phones are made

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Speaker 2: by a small Dutch supplier called Enetcom, and most of

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Speaker 2: their servers are in Canada.

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Speaker 5: We convinced the Canadian judge that there would be evidence

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Speaker 5: on those servers proving that Enucom was supplying telephones to criminals.

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Speaker 2: So one morning, after getting permission from a judge, a

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Speaker 2: team from Martin's office get on a fly from Amsterdam

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Speaker 2: to Canada.

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Speaker 5: I remember a lot of details of the day we

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Speaker 5: went to Canada. We copied six terrhabytes, which seemed a

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Speaker 5: lot of data. So everybody was really excited because you

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Speaker 5: think we have six terabytes of emails, which would be

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Speaker 5: billions of messages.

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Speaker 2: It's a potentially huge breakthrough, a treasure trove of information

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Speaker 2: and evidence, but it's all encrypted. There are layers and

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Speaker 2: layers of passwords and digital keys, and even if they

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Speaker 2: do crack the encryption, Martin has another problem.

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Speaker 5: And had gone try to delete all the information of

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Speaker 5: their clients. After two or three days. So you receive

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Speaker 5: an email, you read the email, you do nothing with

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Speaker 5: the email, and then after two or three days it

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Speaker 5: will self delete.

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Speaker 2: The hackers on the high Tech team get to work.

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Speaker 2: They grind late into the night trying to break the

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Speaker 2: encryption on the messages. There's a lot of trial and error. First,

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Speaker 2: the team have to crack the master password, and to

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Speaker 2: do that they have to try millions of passwords, millions

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Speaker 2: of combinations. It takes months, and we brute forced the password.

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Speaker 5: So we tried a lot of passwords and eventually we

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Speaker 5: were able to break the password off the key surfer

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Speaker 5: and by doing that we were able to use the

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Speaker 5: private keys. And if you have the private key sing

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Speaker 5: you have to encrypt it messengers yet down it's easy.

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Speaker 2: Martin and his colleagues have prized open a vault of

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Speaker 2: evidence about what's really going on inside European organized crime.

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Speaker 2: They can see how conspiracies unfolded minute by minute through

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Speaker 2: strings of chats between gangsters. To really set the cat

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Speaker 2: amongst the pigeons, Martin's team added a little flourish, a

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Speaker 2: sort of middle finger to the criminals.

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Speaker 5: We send out a message to all the users of anetcom.

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Speaker 5: We told them the police is now in Canada securing

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Speaker 5: all the information of your foots, and we heard the panic.

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Speaker 5: So in an airleance. The panics within organized crime groups

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Speaker 5: started on that day.

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Speaker 2: I've talked about the glimpses we sometimes get of organized crime,

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Speaker 2: and this it was like turning on a floodlight. It

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Speaker 2: sends shock waves to the criminal underworld, but it's about

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Speaker 2: to get even worse for them. Martin's team soon figure

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Speaker 2: out a way to recover the deleted messages, the ones

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Speaker 2: that ener common Its users believed were gone forever, and

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Speaker 2: suddenly a once hidden universe of crime, of alliances and

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Speaker 2: global connections is illuminated.

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Speaker 5: A lot more information about assassinations and about the importation

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Speaker 5: of drugs.

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Speaker 2: But for Martin, there's something even more shocking. Reading through

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Speaker 2: the messages, the police suddenly see how easy it's become

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Speaker 2: to order murders using these phones. A crime boss can

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Speaker 2: order a contract killing as easily as they would order

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Speaker 2: a pizza.

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Speaker 5: In an Ellens there were multiple groups that you could

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Speaker 5: hire to assassinate someone. My work is hyder Chrome, so

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Speaker 5: for me it was really strange to see that there

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Speaker 5: wasn't one group or multiple groups that you could hire

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Speaker 5: to kill someone.

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Speaker 2: And buried inside the millions of messages on the enitcom

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Speaker 2: servers is one brief conversation from November twenty fifteen. It's

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Speaker 2: a set of simple and chilling instructions sent from one

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Speaker 2: user to another. The first message reads, got a nice

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Speaker 2: job for you bro. The response, who needs to go

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Speaker 2: to sleep? Then it's a tug. He works in the

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Speaker 2: electricity company and drives a white van. Why he has

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Speaker 2: to go to sleep? I don't know, and I don't

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Speaker 2: even want to know.

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Speaker 6: Every murder case deserves a solution, and you know people

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Speaker 6: should be brought to justice in Trinal but a foreign government,

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Speaker 6: especially the country's so dictatorships, or the killings in another

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Speaker 6: Western country. You know, this is a thing.

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Speaker 2: We met with Elia in episode one. He's the local

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Speaker 2: councilor and our mayor the Dutch town where Ali Mtummad

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Speaker 2: was murdered, and thanks to Paul's reporting, Ulasse now knows

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Speaker 2: that the electrician was in fact a man on the

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Speaker 2: run from the Iranian regime. He also knows that the

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Speaker 2: people who pulled the trigger were Dutch criminals, but he

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Speaker 2: still doesn't know who gave them orders, who hired them,

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Speaker 2: Ulisa has a strong theory though. He thinks it has

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Speaker 2: to be the Iranian regime, the same regime that forced

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Speaker 2: his father to flee Iran decades before, but he can't

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Speaker 2: prove it. So Ulasee does everything he can to raise

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Speaker 2: awareness of the murder. He lobbies local politicians, he starts

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Speaker 2: doing radio and TV interviews about it, including with the

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Speaker 2: Dutch state broadcaster nosdag dot Ilon.

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Speaker 6: So I was like, Okay, thanks for moving in the

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Speaker 6: right direction. I'm getting attention for this very important murder case.

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Speaker 2: You were kind of going out a little bit on

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Speaker 2: your own saying something which sounds like a crazy story.

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Speaker 2: You know, as you said, it is crazy. It is

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Speaker 2: it is, and so was anyone saying you're wrong or

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Speaker 2: where's the proof?

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Speaker 6: You know. The weird thing in politics is the official

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Speaker 6: response you get. It's like, we won't tell you anything

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Speaker 6: about an individual case. We don't know, there's no information,

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Speaker 6: don't bother. I was like, I'm not going to take

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Speaker 6: that for an answer.

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Speaker 2: Because for Uler, say, this is about a lot more

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Speaker 2: than just one murder.

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Speaker 6: If this is true, what is the implication for Iranian

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Speaker 6: people living in the West who fled the country and

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Speaker 6: are speaking out, what's the implication for them. The key

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Speaker 6: message from the regime, it's a message to all of Europe,

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Speaker 6: We're going to find you because you know, let me

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Speaker 6: emphasize this once more. This guy, they were looking for

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Speaker 6: him for thirty five years.

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Speaker 2: So after all of this, you were going on you know, TV,

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Speaker 2: you were giving interviews, you were you were pressing the

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Speaker 2: importance of this case and what you thought, what you

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Speaker 2: believed based on your evidence, and you're thinking about it,

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Speaker 2: what you thought really was the case. And then in

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Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, suddenly boom boom Uleas was shouting about the

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Speaker 2: Matomid murder to anyone who would listen. He'd lobbied his

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Speaker 2: local mayor, the police, even national politicians, and no one

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Speaker 2: gave him answers. It felt like he was banging his

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Speaker 2: head against a brick wall. And then one day.

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Speaker 6: And I was in my office working and then boom,

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Speaker 6: my telephone like exploded, like boom, this Bush messages and

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Speaker 6: I was like, finally we're doing something back to the regime,

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Speaker 6: showing like okay, don't do this.

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Speaker 2: The Dutch Foreign Minister has announced that, based on classified

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Speaker 2: information from the Dutch intelligence services, the government believes that

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Speaker 2: Iran was responsible for the Matomid murder and another murder

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Speaker 2: as well.

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Speaker 6: I remember his words were like for ninety nine percent,

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Speaker 6: for sure we know that Irani has did this. It

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Speaker 6: was of course we because formerly the minister could not

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Speaker 6: conclude officially it was d Raniers. But it was like

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Speaker 6: ninety nine percent, we know we expelled them.

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Speaker 2: The expulsion of diplomats. It might sound well, a bit

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Speaker 2: diplomatic slap on the wrist, but in foreign relations this

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Speaker 2: is a big deal, a rare move, and for Uda

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Speaker 2: say it's his own country, finally agreeing that he was

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Speaker 2: right all along, the people behind Mtammid's murder were in Tehran.

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Speaker 6: These are important moments, but then this quite rapidly changed

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Speaker 6: to something something ugly for me.

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Speaker 2: When Unasa does another round of news interviews linking Tehran

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Speaker 2: to the Mtummd murder and to the murder broker known

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Speaker 2: as Noofel, Novel is not happy, and even though he's

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Speaker 2: in prison awaiting trial, he finds a way to let

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Speaker 2: Ulusay know about it. A lawyer working for mister now

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Speaker 2: ful Fassi that's Novel's full name, files a legal complaint

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Speaker 2: against Ulas. He says he's abusing his position and making

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Speaker 2: false allegations about his client's connections to Iran.

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Speaker 6: And I remember, you know, I'm sure you can relate

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Speaker 6: this feeling. Sometimes unfortunately this happens in life. You get

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Speaker 6: really cold and you feel the energy flowing from your

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Speaker 6: head to you. It just drains your energy. And I

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Speaker 6: got really cold, and I was like, okay, I know

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Speaker 6: who missed the fuss is. It was clear for me

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Speaker 6: this is pure intimidation. Like you know, fifteen years ago,

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Speaker 6: people through a rock at your window. This is the

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Speaker 6: modern form of the intimidation. We know who you are.

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Speaker 6: Stop talking about this connection.

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Speaker 2: RELI say, tells the Dutch security services about the letter.

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Speaker 2: They decide that his life and his family are in danger.

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Speaker 2: So Ulas, just like Paul and like his own father

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Speaker 2: decades before, is now put the police protection. Yeah.

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Speaker 6: But then they made one mistake. They didn't study my

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Speaker 6: character or my family history. So I immediately went out

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Speaker 6: to publicly and said I will not be intimidated. Go

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Speaker 6: to Hell. I will never be intimidated.

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Speaker 2: Ulas isn't shutting up because he still has too many

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Speaker 2: questions about the murder. He knows that now full Fasci

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Speaker 2: novel was found in it in a hand safe house

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Speaker 2: in Dublin, and that Nophel was the one who arranged

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Speaker 2: for Alia mctomma to be murdered. And now he knows

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Speaker 2: that the Dutch government believes it was Iran who was

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Speaker 2: ultimately behind the assassination.

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Speaker 6: But someone spoke to mister Fassi. I don't know who.

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Speaker 6: It's not like someone from Tehran is calling mister Fussy.

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Speaker 6: That's not how things work.

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Speaker 2: So how do things work? The supercartel seems to be

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Speaker 2: connected to this murder, but what does that connection mean?

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Speaker 2: What links these two things together? Looking into all of this,

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Speaker 2: pulling on threads, I came across a case that might

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Speaker 2: help us begin to understand.

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Speaker 7: Somehow we established our credibility. At that point, she already

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Speaker 7: knew we were high leveled gold claff cours, probably multiaton.

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Speaker 7: We have connections to the military, which cost have developpened

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Speaker 7: the door for us.

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Speaker 2: That's next time on Hot Money. Hot Money is a

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Speaker 2: production of The Financial Times and Pushkin Industries. It was

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Speaker 2: written and reported by me Miles Johnson, and if you've

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Speaker 2: got any leads or information about this story, you can

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Speaker 2: email me at new narcost ft dot com. The series

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Speaker 2: producer is Peggy Sutton. Edith Russello is the associate producer.

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Speaker 2: Fact checking is by Arthur god engineering by Sarah Bruguerer,

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Speaker 2: Sound design from Jake Gorsky. Jeremy Walmsley wrote the original music.

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Speaker 2: Our editor is Sarah Nix, and the executive producers are

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Speaker 2: Jacob Goldstein and Cheryl Bramley. Special thanks to Laura Clark, Marshall,

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Speaker 2: waroven Alistair macke, Breen Turner and Arlie Adlington