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For months, Selam Gebrekidan, a New York Times research reporter, looked at a maze of diagrams, drawings and paintings written by hand on a wall inside his Hong Kong apartment. I was trying to rebuild how exactly one of the largest money laundering networks operates.
“I needed visual help when I was breaking it in steps,” he explained. His effort was done well: this month, Mrs. Gebrekidan and Joy Dong, a reporter researcher who covers China for The Times, published a complex investigation that provides an internal vision of how some scammers wash the money and escape. For their article, Mrs. Gebrekidan and Mrs. Dong spoke with almost half a dozen scammers and her washing machines, and then described each step of the washing process.
“We wanted to make the story accessible to readers,” Gebrekidan said about the investigation, which focuses on a single washing network in Southeast Asia. “But first, we had to understand the complexities ourselves.”
In a video call by Hong Kong, Mrs. Gebrekidan and Mrs. Dong discussed interviewing the scammers and money washing machines for their article and the questions even most important to them. These are edited extracts of the conversation.
What initially led you to pursue this story?
Selam Gebrekidan I started looking for money laundering in general about nine months ago. Joy and I wanted to understand how the criminal underworld works.
We had received advice that the city of Sihaanoukville, Cambodia, like several other casino centers in that region, was a hot point to cheat and wash money, especially after pandemic. When I visited, I was surprised by the amount of unfinished buildings on each street. The upper floors in these empty buildings had fluorescent lights on, all night. I kept thinking: Who is up there? And what are they doing?
It took us for a while to gain people’s trust, but then, in January, we had a break. Several criminals agreed to talk to us.
How did you earn people’s trust?
Joy Dong We found someone who was willing to make presentations in the community of local scammers, which was incredibly useful. We share meals with money washing machines and scammers. I have the feeling that they are quite alone and want to show what they are doing to strangers who will not judge them. It is as if they were boasting with a friend about how much money they earn and how intelligent they are.
Did most of his interviews conducted in person?
Gebrekidan We had at least one meeting in person with everyone; No one is going to talk to you by phone about these things, generally. They were almost all in the restaurants. Basically, we received a tour of different Chinese kitchens: Fujian to Hunan to Sichuan.
One night after dinner, we saw a nine -minute fireworks show on the beach. It was just before the new lunar year, and it seemed very expensive. Later, we learned that scammers illuminate fireworks to celebrate their biggest scams. We were surprised because every time the fireworks shoot, someone has lost their life savings at the other.
How did you balance a convincing narrative with the fact that these are criminals that victimize people?
Gebrekidan We talked to the victims who wanted to understand: how did they move my money so fast? Why can’t I recover it? Then we start trying to answer those questions first.
Some readers wrote us after the story came out, talking about how they lost faith in the world and the psychological crisis they experienced after they were attacked. As, who can I trust? Can I even trust myself to make the right decisions? We were trying to show people that there is a complete system that is designed to feel totally helpless.
What was your biggest challenge?
COCK After finding telegram channels where anonymous users announce money laundering services, we begin to try to decode the messages. Everything is in Chinese, but part of the jargon made no sense. Then we asked some former scammers, and explained it to us. Then we obtained a cache, a kind of money laundering manual, from complainants, which had a scaming language dictionary that we follow to decipher more messages.
What was your most surprising finding?
Gebrekidan How shameless it is. When you go to Phnom Penh in Cambodia, you will not believe how many SUV you see on the street; It is not common for you to see these Massive US cars in Asia, or anywhere in the world. It’s like, where does this money come from?
Both plan to continue informing about this industry. What questions do you expect to answer yet?
Gebrekidan While we informed, we obtained a glimpse of how other parts of the washing industry operated that are not informed in other places, and, as you can imagine, we were having difficulty breaking. But we want to understand how the system works. We want to show our readers that this world is very global. It is equivalent to international trade, since it barely pays attention to the borders. Things are done during hours or, sometimes, seconds.
