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For months, Selam Gebrekidan, an investigative reporter for The New York Occasions, would stare at a maze of handwritten diagrams, drawings and charts on a wall inside her Hong Kong condominium. She was attempting to piece collectively how precisely one of many world’s greatest cash laundering networks operates.
“I wanted a visible help as I used to be breaking it down into steps,” she defined. Her effort was put to good use: This month, Ms. Gebrekidan and Pleasure Dong, a reporter-researcher who covers China for The Occasions, revealed a posh investigation that gives an inside take a look at how some scammers launder cash and get away with it. For his or her article, Ms. Gebrekidan and Ms. Dong spoke to just about a half-dozen scammers and their launderers, after which described every step of the laundering course of.
“We needed to make the story accessible for readers,” Ms. Gebrekidan mentioned of the investigation, which focuses on a single laundering community in Southeast Asia. “However first, we needed to perceive the complexities ourselves.”
In a video name from Hong Kong, Ms. Gebrekidan and Ms. Dong mentioned interviewing the scammers and cash launderers for his or her article and the questions nonetheless prime of thoughts for them. These are edited excerpts from the dialog.
What initially led you to pursue this story?
SELAM GEBREKIDAN I began wanting into cash laundering broadly about 9 months in the past. Pleasure and I needed to grasp how the legal underworld works.
We had obtained ideas that the town of Sihanoukville, Cambodia, like a variety of different on line casino hubs in that area, was a sizzling spot for scamming and cash laundering, particularly after the pandemic. After I visited, I used to be struck by the variety of unfinished buildings on each road. The higher flooring in these empty buildings had fluorescent lights on, all evening lengthy. I saved considering: Who’s up there? And what are they doing?
It took us awhile to realize folks’s belief, however then, in January, we bought a break. Quite a lot of criminals agreed to speak to us.
How did you achieve folks’s belief?
JOY DONG We discovered somebody who was prepared to make introductions within the native scammer neighborhood, which was extremely useful. We shared meals with cash launderers and scammers. I’ve a sense that they’re fairly lonely and wish to showcase what they’re doing to outsiders who gained’t decide them. It’s like they’re boasting to a buddy about how a lot cash they make and the way good they’re.
Did you conduct most of your interviews in individual?
GEBREKIDAN We had at the least one in-person assembly with everybody; nobody goes to speak to you on the telephone about these items, often. They had been virtually all at eating places. We mainly bought a tour of various Chinese language cuisines — Fujian to Hunan to Sichuan.
One evening after dinner, we watched a nine-minute fireworks present on the seaside. It was proper earlier than the lunar New 12 months, and it regarded very costly. Later, we realized that the scammers gentle fireworks to rejoice their greatest swindles. We had been shocked as a result of each time the fireworks go off, somebody has possible misplaced their life financial savings on the opposite finish.
How did you stability writing a compelling narrative with the truth that these are criminals victimizing folks?
GEBREKIDAN We spoke to victims who needed to grasp: How did they transfer my cash so shortly? Why can’t I get it again? So we began attempting to reply these questions first.
Some readers wrote to us after the story got here out, speaking about how they misplaced religion on the earth and the psychological disaster they skilled after they had been focused. Like, who can I belief? Can I even belief myself to make the correct choices anymore? We had been attempting to indicate folks that there’s a complete system that’s designed to make you are feeling completely helpless.
What was your greatest problem?
DONG After we discovered the Telegram channels the place nameless customers promote cash laundering providers, we started attempting to decode the messages. All the things’s in Chinese language, however among the lingo didn’t make sense. So we requested some former scammers, they usually defined it to us. Then we bought a cache of recordsdata — a form of money-laundering handbook — from whistle-blowers, which had a dictionary of scammer language that we adopted to decipher extra messages.
What was your most shocking discovering?
GEBREKIDAN How brazen all of it is. While you go to Phnom Penh in Cambodia, you gained’t imagine what number of S.U.V.s you see on the road — it’s not usually that you simply see these huge American vehicles in Asia, or wherever on the earth. It’s like, the place’s this cash coming from?
You each plan to proceed reporting on this trade. What questions do you hope to reply nonetheless?
GEBREKIDAN As we had been reporting, we bought glimpses of how different components of the laundering trade operated that aren’t reported elsewhere — and, as you possibly can think about, we had been having a tough time breaking by means of. However we wish to perceive how the system works. We wish to present our readers that this world may be very a lot world. It’s equal to worldwide commerce in that it barely pays consideration to borders. Issues are achieved in hours, or typically, seconds.